Ballet Clothes

Ballet clothes are a key part of your wardrobe for every dancer. Youalways want your clothes to be comfortable, fitting and flattering. Itis just as important to FEEL good in your clothes as LOOK good, so letstake a closer look at the essential ballet clothes for a dancer.

You will mostly always see the female ballet dancers with their pinktights and ballet leotards. This is traditional for the girls to wearand for the male ballet dancers, it is a unitard or a leotard with a dance belt and tights.

Your clothes have to be tightly fitted and light materials, so they don't stop you working your body in ballet class.

But when you spend all day dancing, you want to be warm and snug too.

Forget those glittering tutus and sparklydresses for now! Lets get the basic essentials right first.

If you walk into a room of professional dancers, you will see them allsnug in their warm up gear and wrapped up in their leg warmers. It isonly until the very last minute and curtain up on stage that they willtake off their woolen warmers to be bare in pink tights and a tutu...

Of course, it is very different for training and student dancers. Theteachers expect all the young dancers to take off all the 'baggies' sothey can see every muscle working in your tights and leotards.

Ballet Leotards

There are plenty of different leotards to buy with elegant patterns, colours and materials. When you are in school, you are most probably expected to wear a standard leotard and colour that is appropriate to the class.

When I first started dance at my local dance school, we couldwear darker colours like black or navy. But when I entered a vocationaldance school there was more of a structure and we had a different colourfor each year group.

Traditionally, the leotard leg cut is fairly low on the hip butthe modern versions are growing to be more high cut, which presumablymakes the legs look longer.

The most common sleeve length for female ballet dancers is thinstraps, which is called a camisole leotard. You can also get cap sleevedand long sleeved.

The traditional neckline for a ballet leotard is round and wide,but there are many other styles such a V-necks and halter top necklines.

The great thing about most modern leotards is that they are fullylined. That makes it not essential to feel the need to wear a bra ofany sort underneath.

Ballet Tights

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There are lots of different brands of ballet tights you can buy such as Bloch, Plume and Capezio.

The most important thing I was constantly trying to find with my ballet tights, was not to make them ladder!

Sometimes, I would have a brand new pair of tights and already they would get a hole or a ladder.

The material is so fine and delicate, so you must really be careful. You can't stop your ballet tights from laddering, but if they doit helps to put some clear nail varnish on the end of the ladder to stopit from laddering any further.

Accessories

There are so many dance accessories, it is almost too tempting to have a shopping spree and buy them all! There are knitted shorts and crop tops, cardigans, leggings and ankle warmers... all of which make you feel ready and warm both before and after class.

In your ballet class, you most likely will be expected to takeoff all your extra accessories. But it is on those cold winter days, orthose additional rehearsals that you will probably thank yourself forbuying some leg warmers or woolen cardigans.

Especially if you have a tight muscle or sore injury that needsto be kept warm, most dancers will own a pair of leg warmers or knittedshorts just incase.

There's so much variety on ballet clothes nowadays, you'll neverfind yourself stuck with what to get. The choice with ballet clothes isvery large, so it can only get bigger and better!

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