Hiya lovely ladies! Welcome to my little corner of the internet, where we celebrate all things tutu! Today, #TutuTuesday is taking us back in timeā¦ to the fabulous, frivolous, fantastic world of tutu history!
Now, settle in with your favourite cuppa, maybe a slice of pink Victoria sponge cake, and get ready to learn all about the wonderful evolution of the most iconic garment in ballet history. Itās a true fashion story that started in 1832! Thatās almost 200 years ago! Can you believe it? Can you imagine? Weāre celebrating all those years and how amazing theyāve been for the world of ballet and our delightful tutus.
I can feel the history swirling around meā¦ Itās been a long and delightful journey for the tutu. My oh my. The most glorious journey in all of fashion, I think! What else brings the joy of ballet dancing to every eye, to every heart? I love to watch a little twirl! There is a story of amazing imagination that created something so utterly amazing to grace our wonderful stages with, that has become something so absolutely popular that, today, there isn't a country where some people aren't trying to dance in some sort of tutu.
Today's blog journey is set on June 2nd, 2015. I have travelled back to 2015 on my pink train that brings me everywhere. Today it took me straight to New York City! What a fab city to be inā¦ I had the best shopping trip on 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue. Then I hopped on the subway and rode straight over to the famous Broadway Theatre on Times Square, for a special night out at the beautiful Gershwin Theatre! What a thrill to see Les Miserables, wow, and they had tutus in that! They really do dress up some of the amazing musicals on Broadway to really amazing effect. But the tutu, now, thatās the best invention in theatre fashion. I hope you'll agree! There were just some utterly lovely gowns in that play as wellā¦ that must be why it's called Les Mis! (She chuckles and lets out a girly snort).
Anyway, before we dive deeper into the history of this marvelous garmentā¦ let's just stop for a second and think about why the tutu is just so special. What is it about a perfectly draped, airy, romantic tulle confection that sends our hearts soaring? The twirl! The colour! The flow! The light, the shape and the formā¦ it's a pure work of art, if you ask me!
As a little Derbyshire girl I just thought that it was part of ballet itself and had always been a staple part of it. But my journeys to other lands show me that isn't the case. I've seen performances by many amazing dancers all over the world. They have done everything from Bollywood and folk dance to modern jazz ballet, they have all kinds of clothes, wonderful colours, flowing styles and stunning performances but often their main garment of choice isn't a tutuā¦ well not exactly!
Our History Journey Begins:
I had to delve back a bit in history to find where this glorious journey began... It started around 1832 with none other than Marie Taglioni - now thatās a name to know! Marie, was a stunning ballerina, and was part of the early romantic era. She changed the way people danced, how they dressed, and basically she started the āballisticā fashion revolution. This ballet dancer dared to challenge the big and flowing ball gown! What a strong girl. Her performance, in the play La Sylphide, broke all the boundaries of the stage clothes and started the modern idea of the dancer. The tutu started a fashion sensation on the stage of the OpĆ©ra Garnier, the world's most luxurious ballet theatre!
Itās important to point out here that these werenāt exactly your fluffy tulle tutu yet. They were longer, full-skirted and made with cotton and silk, so you can still imagine they flowed beautifully! The short skirts, those came about a little laterā¦ they really do just about go up to their knees. Those dancers of today are incredible athletes!
But these early, almost knee-length tutus (yes, you read that right, nearly reaching the knee!), were truly something to behold. It wasn't so much a big long dress with flowing train at the back, but the start of something revolutionary for the way the female dancers were allowed to express themselves. It was as much a symbol of freedom as anything else! A woman on the stage showing her figure. Now, if youāre thinking that women on stage dressing like that has happened since, well, yes of course, but in those days women didnāt go out and about on the stage like this, or with any showing of legs, not on stage or in the real world. Well that was back in 1832. The year that everything started to change. Marie Taglioni gave ballet, a dance that was seen in the world as mostly a display of technique, real dramatic meaning. It took some time though, from the original knee-length style of 1832, it was almost 30 years until these romantic skirts started being more like a tight fit right up to the waist, and very short as well.
Imagineā¦ you go to see a ballet show, your whole life you are told that the ballerinas would be dancing with skirts almost down to the ground. But this time when the curtains go up...theyāre twirling away and showing just above the knee, maybe a bit higher! There are no rules or expectations with ballerinas on the stage!
The real transformation was in 1870, at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscowā¦ here they started to bring those beautiful tutus in. It wasnāt really until around the 19th century and the start of the āballet boomā, where everything about ballet dance changed, from technique to the music. Then you also got those āballerinaā shapes from the dancers starting to look completely different too! Then we saw these tutus appearing, from what seemed out of nowhere. If that happened these days we would say it was a huge cultural explosionā¦ a sudden fascination and love with something amazing that everyone wanted to see.
You just knew the classic tutu style, so soaring in a world of tulle with flowing layers that we associate with a ballerina must be something beautifulā¦ They say, "Thereās nothing more elegant or stylish than the tutu", but before we get caught up in the gorgeous shape and form of these beautiful and delightful tutus letās start with its history. If the 19th century was a time for big, flowing shapes to turn to smaller skirts of the knee-length designs, the 20th century gave us the classic tutu design with its super short skirts and flowing tulle.
*So how exactly were those amazing layers created? *
Well, those magnificent swirling movements couldnāt be created from just one layer! Soā¦ think about it. One layer? Then, what happens as you danceā¦ it looks like a short frilly skirt and doesnāt look good in a dance sequence. I imagine all those dance sequences I've watched in ballet schoolsā¦ the tutus with only one layer? Can you imagine? They don't move. So it has to be more than one! That's why there is this wonderful combination of tiers of stiff net, tulle and mesh, making up a dress and giving the full twirling form thatās so beautiful on a ballerina. It is quite a sight! Even those little kids in their tutu costumes and practice classes, look so cute in their dance schools as they move around in those wonderful little fluffy twirly designsā¦ it's truly inspiring for young girls and little ballerinas! And that is really what I want to get across to everyone, what better style of fashion and elegance could there be!
By 1945 a wonderful evolution had taken place. We've had the Romantic period of the long flowing gown; then that classic tutu skirt got smaller; then the layered shape became much bigger, like they're about to take flight! So by the end of the 20th century it really did come into its own and was a truly iconic ballet stage garment. By then it had to have been the number one most recognised dance costume in the whole world and just about everyone knew its style. We all know the tutu has such incredible visual and stylish value to the dance that I just had to share it in this blog today! And, of courseā¦ they come in just about every colour now, which makes them more adaptable for use across every theatre and every show around the worldā¦ oh what a beautiful sight to see those ballerina's with their lovely long limbs and such delicate form against the bright backdrop, itās a vision for sure!
It truly is a symbol of female grace and beauty, just a vision, it just has a power to itself! Just think of the wonderful performances weāve all seenā¦ from all the world's amazing ballerina's, they have inspired countless performers! And even today the ballerina looks amazing when wearing a tutuā¦ theyāre a timeless design and truly iconic in our world. The ballet world in 2015 is doing its bit to preserve the tutu's traditions by the world's great ballet schools! The wonderful classical repertoire ballet performances across the world, I must say, all take some of their dance inspiration from these grand ballerinas who made their own mark in ballet historyā¦ The ballerina has really developed through all the years and her technique has also been improvedā¦ it really is incredible what these dancers do. If only more people understood the commitment they need and the amount of work they put into their performances, it is so impressiveā¦ all that training from a young age, with the correct dress, and the best ballet techniqueā¦ there has to be real passion!
And we've had quite a few styles of tutusā¦ the Romantic style which has taken its cue from a āballoon' shape, to a big swirling ball of material in different layers that is designed to swirl, and this kind is called a ātutu pancakeā and it gives an amazing circular look as the dancer spinsā¦ that's another design worth having! The tutu in every dance can vary in length depending on the choreography of a danceā¦ There is the classic or āpoeticā tutu where the length can vary from above the knee to a little longer to really show off the lines of the dancer's bodyā¦. This can go up to the knee-length styles and really showcase the dancer's legsā¦ thatās when it really starts to give the wow factorā¦ it's a lovely style, one to try on or see being wornā¦ the dancers of the early days must have had to practice more to find those perfect elegant moves and those poses on the stage. Imagine getting it wrong in the early stages and going too high? Iād imagine they did. We do nowā¦ It really was a different type of movement that they had to develop.
What do we do without the ātutuā, a lovely dance classic garment, the icon that's been gracing the stage, inspiring us for so longā¦ the dress that never gets tiredā¦ a dance design for eternity!
As I sit in my train carriage in 2015 I canāt wait to bring my travels and insights on all things tutu with me when I get back to Derbyshire and into 2023ā¦ What amazing insights will 2023 bringā¦ will I find my pink tutu inspiration for this year in a 1945 ballet showā¦ perhapsā¦ that's an inspiration just waiting to be hadā¦
Come back again for my next blog, here on pink-tutu.com every Tuesday... You can look forward to my #TutuTuesday fashion adventures in all things pink tutu, next week's adventures and lots more tutu loveā¦ for next time!
