Dearest darlings, gather 'round! It's your girl, Tilly, here, ready to bring you all the juicy gossip from the world of twirling and tiaras, or, shall we say, tutus and tiaras! Because darling, it's 29th October, 1996, and that means one thing, and one thing only - **it's tutu Tuesday!**
Now, I know what you're thinking, "Tilly, haven't you been off to a 'ballet ball' somewhere? Where are all the fabulous, feather-boa clad, 'It' girls in all of their dazzling diamanté?", you cry! You know me too well, darling, I'm at the fabulous ballet school I used to attend, the one I swore never to step foot in again after "The Great Tights Incident" of 1994, when Mrs. Willoughby mistook my cream tights for a stray cat and attempted to shoo it away with her ballet slippers - let's just say the fur flew - literally! Now, if you thought it was "tutu madness" before, well darling, this time around, it is about to get real, very real. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the "pink tutu revolt" of 1986.
Now darling, it might seem like a distant, glamorous memory, but allow me to refresh your bouffant! The "Pink Tutu Revolt" was nothing less than a total riot of glorious colour and fluffy feather boas! Oh darling, those were the days - think "Flashdance" with more pouts and even more sparkle. I just wish I'd filmed it all. Anyway, our darling, dancing princesses took to the cobbled streets of our city, demanding, what? Well darling, let me break it down, their manifesto (if you will) was comprised of the following, most crucial points:
- No more ghastly grey tights! They were "too sombre, darling! " we all cried.
- They demanded more colours! It had to be either the deepest magenta, or the lightest blush pink. Pink for all - well, that's what we thought back then.
- "No more "white" tutu restrictions!" they proclaimed - you see back in '86 darling, all that was permitted, by some dusty rule book no one seemed to have found, was the 'off-white', "cloud-white" as it were, of all the leotards and tutus. These girls wanted white white and didn't care if they looked like they'd just escaped from "The Sound of Music" for a day! Now darling, when I say these young things took the "pinks" and the "whites", I don't mean 'one' little rebellious ballerina, or just two darling. No darling, oh, I tell you, at least ten or fifteen ballerinas and aspiring dancers of all shapes and sizes, ages and stages in their budding dancing careers, took part in what they saw as a "noble stand against the old ways".
I was just about to "do a run through" in the auditorium - if you don't have at least three in your "day" then what are you doing with your time? I ask you? So I had only popped on my "leotard of the day" - it was the blue silk one - that was very daring darling - I mean, blue on the ballet floor? "Tres magnifique!" and my black mesh over skirt and my trusty white "demi-pointe" slippers. Well, as I'm "whipping" through my routine, you know "demi-plie" to a "five plie", it seemed like the floor, not to mention the ceiling, and my lovely Mrs. Willoughby who looked as though she was on her way to a "cream tea" dressed in her usual "white dress, with a navy ribbon", as she always had done in her forty years of "teaching, instructing, nurturing", all those "little dancers' aspirations, desires and talents!" and "creating ballet magic! Well darling, you just wouldn't have believed it, if it hadn't happened, Mrs. Willoughby's mouth, was the perfect 'O' shape darling! I actually think her wig shook, she was shocked! What can you do with some of them these days? You see, my "run through" - well, the other ballerinas hadn't made it to class. You see it was that morning in "1986" that it all kicked off, if you will! And so when they took to the city streets that autumn afternoon, the one which changed it all - forever - a hundred odd white and pink clad "ballerinas of revolt", there wasn't a dry eye in the auditorium!
Darling, it all ended with them reaching the town hall! Of course they all, including myself, got 'told off" in the strictest terms possible, from the town's very own, and quite scary, mayor. But darling! It ended as all the good things do - with "tea and sympathy". And let me tell you, if "Pink Tutu Tea" - as the newspapers were referring to it the following day - is any testament to anything, well then you and I know, that "every rule must break at some time or another"! You see darling, that's why we "dance our way through life! We can't help ourselves! We're dancers, aren't we? Why are we so silly about our dance? Well darling, let's not question it too much. Just as you don't question the magic that exists within you!"
Anyway, darlings, I must rush! That's "Tilly Time", out and over and out! Let's raise a glass of chilled "Pommery" to the Pink and the White - "long live the revolution"!"