May the Most Sparkle Win

May the Most Sparkle Win

Each year the Miss Universe competition is eagerly watched around the world. The main questions asked are: who is wearing what? Who will outdo other costumes? and most of all, who will be crowned Miss Universe 2017?

The winners are tested on a variety of platforms, but the popular national costume display is merely for show. This year costume designs were bold and colourful.

The Venezuelan costume was a flowing blue and white confection bedecked with pearls and a large seahorse sceptre.

Miss Indonesia chose a golden gown in the theme of a golden bird goddess.

Miss Universe Panama wore a bright green costume with flowers representing her country.

Perhaps some of the most notable of all the costumes were those that had been created with genuine Swarovski crystals. This is due to the crystals being made from glass, rather than plastic, and being durable, with metal foil backings that don’t easily peel off. Each year it’s exciting to see which competitors utilized Swarovski crystals in their costumes.

One notable costume was worn by Cheryl Chou, from Singapore. She wore a colourful costume in pinks, yellows, blues, greens, and golds, with rainbow wings. Her headpiece was designed by Moe Kasim and created to represent a traditional bridal headpiece. This headpiece was topped by Swarovski crystals.

Not to be outdone, Miss Universe Malaysia also chose a sparkly white and light orange jumpsuit bedecked in clear white Swarovski crystals. Her costume represented the Patronas Towers in Malaysia. The two towers pointed up from her shoulders, with futuristic silver shoes. The crystals were arranged in square and arrow patterns around her bodice and legs, with stripes down her arms. Many applauded the direction away from a gown to something akin to a national superhero costume.

Miss Thailand wore a traditional dress with gold lamé and gems with a long cascading shawl. This costume was intensely scrutinized and labelled the “Jewel of Thailand”. The crystals in this costume were also Swarovski crystals, and the gown was inspired by old film footage of Queen Sirikit.

Host Steve Harvey announced the winner on Sunday, January 29th. Miss France, Iris Mittenaere won. She hopes to become a dental surgeon, and won with her amazing national costume in glittering rhinestone gemstone jewellery and red feather boas, much like a showgirl costume.It’s hard to imagine how next year’s candidates will top 2017’s amazing costume designs, but it should be worth the wait.

If you’re in dance or show business and are seeking a show-stopping costume for the stage, or a dance dress for a competition, we’d love to assist you in designing and sewing a masterpiece. Our seamstresses are experienced in the proper installation of Swarovski crystals on fabric. Please contact CDP—Costume Design Plans—today and we’ll take your costume ideas into reality so you outshine and out sparkle the competition. 🙂

 

Selena Gomez Sparkles in 100.000 Swarovski Crystals Onstage

Selena Gomez Sparkles in 100.000 Swarovski Crystals Onstage

It can be quite an achievement to figure out how to make a world-renowned musical celebrity wear mostly sparkling Swarovski crystals and not much else. In Selena Gomez’s recent Revival Tour she not only debuted a new song, but also a bright and sparkling costume that featured over 100.000 Swarovski crystals. This costume featured a light golden coloured body-encasing bodysuit that covered her torso, but left her arms, legs, and neckline shimmering with the thousands of tiny sparkling gems.

Selena wore matching light gold boots to match the costume. This was the costume she wore during the opening number of her show, and she certainly wowed and stunned the audience. Her catsuit was completely covered with the clear colourless crystals, and apparently the official crystal count was 96.480, as apparently the designers were counting. Swarovski has created some of the best crystals for costumes, ensuring that the crystals are durable, sparkle as much as a diamond, and that they last a long time, as costumes often become part of museums or personal collections.

Selena Gomez’s costume was designed by the New York label Monse and involved a collaboration between the Austrian Swarovski company and the design label.

selena-gomez-swarovski-costume
Selena Gomez Swarovski Costume

Surprisingly, there are actually two Swarovski-encrusted costumes on Selena’s musical tour. Every second night she wears a black version of the golden-nude one. She alternates her costumes each night of her tour. For those lucky attendees who have more than one night of tickets to her shows, they’ll get to see her in both spectacular versions of the costumes.

Her opening act begins with a costume transformation. She enters the stage wearing a full-length gown, morphs into cocktail length being short in front and long in the back, and then she discards her gown completely to reveal the black or the golden catsuit beneath. During the transformation she keeps her face veiled with black netting, before discarding this during her final transformation.

Monse is a new clothing brand that was created by Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia. Both have previously worked for Oscar de la Renta. They presented their first collection this Spring 2016. They also work for Carolina Herrera in full-time positions, but still manage time to run their own line. The Monse line has earned some CFDA and International Woolmark Prize nominations. Sarah Jessica Parker has been seen wearing the Monse clothing during the Met Gala, and she supports their line fully. Selena Gomez’s introductory performance look is called “Runway/Masquerade”. Other designers were invited to create looks for her other portions of the show.

Selena Gomez’s Swarovski catsuits are sure to be destined for the costume museums’ ranks, through not only their sparkling ingenuity, but for the sheer number of hours that must have gone into constructing the black and the golden nude catsuits. These are costumes that have been designed for Selena Gomez alone, and are so form-fitting that they’ll be retired with honours after her Revival Tour has been completed.
You would like to have a unique costume made with Swarovski Crystals? You would like to shine on the Stage like a Pop Star! Just contact us and we would be glad to create your dream costume!!!

Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski Costume Collaboration

Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski Costume Collaboration

Cirque du Soleil has some of the most unique costumes in the theatre circuit, so when they collaborate with the Swarovski crystal company in costume sewing and design, you know there are going to be some amazing costume creations. Every Cirque du Soleil show has continued to amaze and charm audiences. These are stage productions that encompass smaller stages, often done under tents or smaller Las Vegas venues. A show has little dialogue, choosing to show rather than tell the story. And this is why a collaboration with Swarovski has been so exciting.

Many people know that Swarovski has a line of beautiful clear colourless crystals yet they forget that their crystal line also has bright colourful gems too. If you picture a Cirque du Soleil show, most people think of unusual and yet colourful costumes. Swarovski crystals were used for one of the costumes worn during the showing of Amaluna. This was a white dress worn during the Peacock Dance. This dress comprised two pieces, a bustier and a skirt. The bustier was made from a stretch nylon tulle to enable the dancer to move fluidly. The bustier was encrusted with white beaded lace that was covered in Swarovski crystals. The dress itself was made of nearly sixty metres of white non-stretch nylon tulle. The dress was constructed with a tail made from sun ray pleats and white peacock feather designs. This skirt was also covered in white lace and was covered in Swarovski crystals. The combined dress alone was covered in over 6500 Swarovski crystals.

Cirque du Soleil’s show Totem also featured an incredible costume that while simple, still packed an amazing wow factor for the audience. This costume began as a dark blue silhouette fully covering

Marina-&-Svetlana-Tsodikova Cirque Du solei-Totem
Marina & Svetlana-Tsodikova costumes made with 4,000 Swarovski crystals.

the male performer. Crystals were then attached in amazing patterns, much like resembling tattoos on the body. When the acrobat performed in his costume, the crystals would shine and sparkle in the light as he turned and rotated. For such a simple costume, it certainly stunned the eyes.

Swarovski has even been helping costume design students in the creation of costume designs. At École supérieure de mode (ESM) students were given the opportunity to redesign popular costumes from the Cirque du Soleil shows. Swarovski believes in supporting emerging fashion talents. Teams were formed, and they transformed past Cirque du Soleil costumers into new designs by using fabric and crystals together. Their aim was to reuse garments for sustainable living and to transform old materials into new forms.

Students made purses and bags from the old costumes. One notable design was a lot like a kaleidoscope from childhood, which is one of the notable themes that could come from a Cirque du Soleil show. The Swarovski company was impressed by the talents discovered from the ESM school.

Swarovski continues to enforce their commitment to sustainability through creativity and education. It will be exciting to see what other types of Cirque du Soleil collaborations they have throughout the remainder of 2016. Let your costume made also with Swarovski crystals!
Get in touch with us and we will design and create your perfect Swarovski Costume!!

Distinctive Costumes Designs on the Eurovision Song Contest Final 2016

Distinctive Costumes Designs on the Eurovision Song Contest Final 2016

Eurovision has been going strong since the mid-20th century. Each participating country sends their best singer to the competition. They try to not make it about politics, but with around 42 countries competing each year, you never know what may happen. This year, the finals were held in Stockholm, Sweden, and Jamala from Ukraine was the winner. The special guest of the Eurovision awards was Justin Timberlake, who was not competing, but only presenting his newest song to Europe with a live band.

Not only are the singers the best that each country has to offer, there are also some amazing and outlandish costumes to be seen on stage. Many performers had costumes that were encrusted with Swarovski crystals, known for their bright and everlasting sparkling properties.

The female host of the show, Petra Mede , wore a stunning gold dress made with Swarovski crystals. It had long sleeves, and a drooping cowl neck that tapered down her right shoulder, with a split down the front to her ankles. The entire surface of her dress was fully encrusted with small Swarovski crystals.Eurovision+Song+Contest+2016

 

With a stroke of brilliance to allow the performers to sparkle, the opening ceremony costumes didn’t compete, but were made of white paper and they were truly amazing. They turned models into large paper lanterns that resembled everything from panda bears to multi-armed octupi.peaper_outfit-eurovision-2016

 

Some of the most notable costumes were presented from countries in Europe.
Hovi Star from Israel had a unique costume which was pure black, and the stage helped to enhance the theme. The performer stood out as a black silhouette against a sparkling crystal night sky.israel_eurovision_2016

 

Poli’s costume from Bulgari was a futuristic black and white creation. At first it merely appeared that she had strips of cloth for stockings and sleeves, but during the last chorus, her dress lit up the stage with its many LED lights.bulgari_eurovision

 

Germany must have had one of the most unusual competitor’s costumes. Jamie-Lee Kriewitch wore a dress reminiscent of Japanese Lolita style, complete with a hat that was covered with tiny colourful toys. Her dress had a short but full circular blue skirt, with the bodice in white with ribbons.germany_eurovision_2016

 

Australia’s Dami Im sung her Sound of Silence entry atop a large black box with sparkling gems, while wearing a knee-length white dress embedded with clear Swarovski crystals. The dress had a short sleeve on one side, open in the front, and no sleeve on the other side.australia_eurovision_2016

 

Nina Kralijic represented Croatia and wore an interesting silver and white V-necked gown with a shawl, and a long cascading waterfall of ruffles.croatia_eurovision

Iveta Mukuchyan from Armenia wore a tight fitting long sleeved bodysuit consisting of think black sparkling cable-tie styled straps over a sheer beige fabric.

 

Eurovision is about a lot more than which country has the best singer—the finale is about a full evening of the world’s best superstars, and how they can shine and sparkle in their beautiful costumes.

Get the perfect costume or dress made by Costume Design Plans: https://www.costume-design-plans.com/your-own/costume-references/

Shining and sparkling

Shining and sparkling

As they say, everybody starts her/his carreer at childhood. I believe it happened to me as well. My mother was a dressmaker, so it was obvious for me that my childhood play was dressmaking for my dolls. I loved shining, sparkling, elegant dresses, so I prepared “stage costumes” and wedding dresses for my dolls.

How does a brilliant costume or wedding dress look like?

It’s full of rhinestones and flitters, of course!

So I got known the dress decoration work very early.

After finishing my education as professional dressmaker, I started to work for theathers, and more and more individual actresses, dancers, singers, performers found me – apart from the wedding dress orders. So I had the opportunity to work with different types of decorations.

My many years’ experience tells me that if you need a quality, wearable costume, you have to insist on the best quality rhinestones.

And for the timebeing it is Swarovski.

You can expect the same shining and sparkling what you get from Swarovski jewellery, and it gives quality appearance on the stage. Look at this dress of Rihanna, and decide yourself:

Don’t forget: stage costume is an investment into your act the same way as you invest your time and efforts into it!

Find your plan on our website and enjoy the stage lights!

Erzsébet Tóth Bohács