One of the most exciting times of year for a dancer is when recital costumes start coming in! There are not many feelings that are better than seeing your costume, unzipping the garment bag, trying it on for the first time, and taking it home. However, as exciting as this can be, it’s important to remember that recital is still months down the road and we need to take extra special care of our costume until then! Below are some of our tried and true tricks for keeping your recital costume perfect until the show!
1. When costumes come in, we always try them on to make sure that they fit well and look nice. Once our costumes are tried on and ready to be sent home, zip them back up into their garment bag and leave them in the bag. Storing costumes in the garment bags they come in helps ensure they do not get damaged before showtime.
*For our tinier dancers, since we get our costumes in a few months prior to the show, sometimes they are still a little big on your dancer. This is NORMAL and is because we size up to make sure that none of our dancers outgrow their costumes between now and the time they got on stage!
2. If your costume has a tutu, it’s normal for it to get wrinkled during shipping. When you take your costume home, store your tutu upside down, outside of the garment bag to help fluff it back out! If it’s still wrinkled at recital time, try sticking in the bathroom during a hot shower or using a steamer on the lowest setting.
3. Some costumes have fringe. With fringe costumes, there is a string that holds all of fringe together so that it doesn’t tangle, get damaged, and it also keeps any from falling out before showtime. Though it’s tempting to pull the string off as soon as we try on our costume for the first time, leave the string in its place until picture week!
4. All costumes come with tights and maybe with some accessories like gloves or hair clips. Store those at the bottom of the garment bag. Closer to the recital, a paper will get sent home to show you how to wear these items.