One of the most obvious attractions to the world of ballroom dancing is its use of glamour and high-fashion to ornate the often mundane human body. Ballroom dancing has always been at the forefront of what society considers glamorous, and is often directly influenced by those who become icons in the fashion design industry. Just as dance itself imitates, mocks, or symbolizes parts of life itself, so can ballroom dance fashions mirror, and even help to promote, what is displayed in run-ways fashion shows each year.
A case in point is the story of Lucy (Lucile), Lady Duff Gordon during the early 1900’s. At a time when the fashion industry was dominated by men, and Paris, the British noblewoman became the leading figure in women’s fashions throughout Europe and America. Not only did she succeed in betraying the traditional British role of a noblewoman by engaging in the lesser ranks of business and trade, but she also managed to free corseted women from the rigid dress codes of the previous eras. She lowered necklines, slit skirts, and loosened waistlines. Her creations were designed to move, to breathe, to flow gently, and to give the wearer the feeling of being wrapped in luxurious silks and laces. She named her designs with dreamy, romantic labels such as “The Sighing Sound of Lips Unsatisfied,” and “Red Mouth of a Venomous Flower.” She designed many types of colour-coordinated accessories that further embellished her dresses, paving the way for fortunes that were made from silk fabrics, beads, bags, gloves, laces, chiffons, stockings, etc. Her connection to the ballroom world existed through her long-term fashion relationship with Irene Castle.
Irene is already noted in history as being the person who influenced the entire “Bob” hair-do fascination of the Roaring 20’s, but Irene’s dance dresses were almost exclusively designed by Lady Duff Gordon, and Irene’s influence on the fashion of New York City was huge. Images of Irene dressed for dance clearly demonstrates Lady Duff’s fascination with wispy fabrics and layers of chiffon. In her own words:
“As the sculptor sees his dreams translated into line, so were mine expressed in the drape of a wisp of chiffon or the fall of a satin fold…For me there was a positive intoxication in the taking of yards of shimmering silks, laces airy as gossamer, and lengths of ribbon, delicate and rainbow covered, and fashioning of them garments so lovely they might have been worn by some princess in a fairy tale.” (www.encyclopedia-titanica.org)
By 1905, Lady Duff’s creations were more of a cult than fashion craze, and her clientele included celebrities such as Anna Pavlova, Lillie Langtry, the Countess of Warwick, Lady Randolph Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, and Queen of Spain and Romania, and Queen Mary. Lady Duff is also recognized as being the person who trained and employed the first fashion models, and was the first to stage the “catwalk” style show. She decorated her salons to look and feel like private drawing rooms, provided orchestrated music at showings, and sent regular invitations to clients to view new collections. She was, in fact, a fashion icon in her days not unlike Versace was in his. As a result of her success, ballroom fashions became exaggerated representations of her dresses. If we look at ballroom costuming for each decade since then, we see that this trend continues (see images in slideshow below).
Although fashions, in society and in the ballroom, have changed many times since the early 1900’s, hints of Lady Duff’s designs can be seen in the accessorizing of today’s ballroom costumes. Long, billowy drapes of flowing fabric often adorn the arms of Standard and Smooth gowns, and chiffon still rules as the fabric of choice for dresses that softly play around the dancer’s legs. Latin costumes have been more influenced by Latin American styles than early Twentieth century European fashions, but Latin and Rhythm dancers will adorn themselves heavily with jewels and stones just as their Waltzing peers do. Only the flapper-style of the late 1920’s could give Lady Duff a run for her money. Unwilling to conform to the new Jazz Age and its wilder fashions, Lady Duff finally let her reign as fashion icon go in the second half of the 1920’s. Designers such as Adrian and show-dancers such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers brought back the glamour in ballroom dancing within another decade, only to be changed again in the 1950’s with the invention of “poodle skirts” (also called circle skirts). The 1970’s discovered catsuits for men and women, and punk hair-dos and bold make-up were hot trends in the 1980’s.
It seems that there are more styles of ballroom costumes today than ever, and there are as many ideas about what looks good on the ballroom floor as there are cultures and sub-cultures in the world. There are, however, trends today that will eventually be known as the "look" of the 2010-era, such as the use of layers of ruffles on the lower half of Smooth gowns.
Resources:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2005/06/review_i_love_l.html
2003 "Madame Lucile: A Life in Style." www.encyclopedia-titanica.org
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