10 Professional Dancers You Didn’t Know Became Fashion Designers
As every dancer knows, it’s all in the details. From the way you hold your head, to the way you point (or don’t point) your toes, each movement and muscle choice is intentional. Your training has been centered on small stylistic elements for years.
So who better to transition into the fashion world, an environment driven by the details, than a professional dancer?
Dance studio owners, teachers and directors know all too well what goes into creating and executing a showstopping recital or performance, which is much like a runway show when the designer puts his or her work on stage for all to enjoy. Whether directing dance shows, or performing in them, dancers know what makes an audience pay attention.
Likewise, both fashion and dance involve an artistic vision and an urge to create and express. So is it really surprising that many dancers also become fashion designers? Once an artist, always an artist.
For these dancers, their artistic nature led them to begin creating clothes and costumes. While they once expressed themselves through pirouettes and leaps, they each express their own creativity now through fabrics, colors, textures and designs.
Brian Friedman , Judanna Lynn , Janie Taylor, Reid Bartelme, Bradon McDonald, Elena Comendador, Lisa Choules and Aviad Arik Herman have all taken their drive and passion from dance to the fashion. Here are the final two professional dancers tured fashion designers we are highlighting in our blog this week
DAY 5
Lowell Mathwich
Now Resident Costume Designer at Dayton Ballet in Ohio, Lowell Mathwich once danced for a decade with the company. Much like Bartelme, his first experience with designing was for Halloween costumes. But unlike Bartelme, he started sewing as a kid and continued all through his dancing years. “The two professions always went hand-in-hand,” he told Dayton Daily News in this 2013 interview. “Because I was able to sew, I would make extra money building costumes for the company. When I came to Dayton Ballet in my first year, I was an apprentice and to make sure I had a full salary, I acted as assistant to Barbara Trick, who was doing costumes. We had a designer here from New York — Mimi Maxmen — who was building headpieces for Swan Lake and I worked with her. She was a friend of Stuart Sebastian’s in the late ’70s and ’80s, and at a certain point, Stuart gave me the opportunity to design a small piece he was doing. And the pieces got bigger and more frequent, and in 1989 I was given the opportunity to design Dracula. That was my first full-length ballet.”
*Lowell Mathwich working on a costume for Dayton Ballet's Cinderella. Photo by Lisa Powell, courtesy of Dayton Daily News
Randall Christensen
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of a dancer-turned-designer is Randall Christensen, the genius behind the costumes on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. A late bloomer who didn’t start dancing until college, Christensen has definitely made up for any lost time. He performed on the BYU Dance Team (where he first learned to sew) before working as an instructor for Fred Astaire Dance Studio. Later, he began designing and selling costumes at dance competitions. His big break came in Season 2 of DWTS. Now he’s 19 seasons in! In a 2011 interview, he said his dance background helps him tremendously when it comes to understanding costume design. “I know that from being a dancer that the man’s hand needs to be unencumbered on the shoulder blade on the left side,” he explains. “There are other little tricks for functionality.”
For all of these dancers-turned-designers, perhaps it is their knowledge of and experience as dancers that has made them so successful in their new career path. After all, who better to trust than a dancer?
Guest Contributor: Chelsea Thomas of Dance Informa
