All the costumes you see on stage are created by the extremely talented wardrobe department at The Australian Ballet Centre in
Once the choreographer and the artistic director approve the costume designs, the purchasing coordinator searches for the most suitable materials. The head costumier then begins by making a sample costume in calico (a toile) before the actual costumes are cut and sewn. Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake required a total of 280 costumes. Each of those costumes took approximately 40 hours to make, not including the time it takes to make the accompanying headdresses and jewellery.
When most of us think of ballet, we imagine an elegant ballerina wearing a tutu, the dress with a short projecting skirt that reveals the ballerina’s technique. It takes 10 metres of net to make the skirt of a tutu, the same amount of material it takes to make a full-length ball gown.
Dancers who share principal roles have costumes individually made for them, but corps de ballet dancers sharing roles also share costumes. For this reason, the bodices and jackets are adjustable.
If The Australian Ballet decides to re-stage an existing ballet, the old costumes are taken out of storage and examined by the wardrobe department to see if they can be re-used. This could mean making small repairs and readjustments for the new cast, or it could mean a major costume refurbishment.
For example, the costumes for The Three Musketeers had badly faded since the 1980 world premiere. Although many costumes needed to be completely remade, some of the original trims and lace could be salvaged and included in the new costumes, making them a mix of old and new. This is the advantage of The Australian Ballet’s policy of always using the best quality materials and production techniques - a policy that helps the company present productions that are not only notable for magnificent dancing but also for the splendour of the sets and costumes!
