Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I don’t see a costume that fits my needs in your rental stock?
Please contact us to see if we have additional stock available that has not been added to the site yet.
Depending on availability in our schedule, we may be able to design a new rental costume for your performance. While we retain control of the design process, this option does allow for you to have some input in the design.
Rental prices for this option may be higher than our standard rental pricing.
Additionally, many of the pieces in our rental stock can be altered for a different role by changing the decorations. For example, by taking the bodice and plate decorations off of a white Snow Queen, we could easily transform it into an Odette, or a wedding tutu for Aurora.
How long before my performance date should I place my order?
You should place your order as soon as possible. We typically require at least 3 months’ notice for a custom costume, any order placed after this time may incur an additional rush fee. Our custom costumes are made to order, so it is important to allow enough time for us to order fabrics and trims from other companies. More notice may be necessary for larger orders. Some of our clients place their orders as far as a year in advance.
When reserving a costume from our rental stock, the same principle applies; as soon as you know the dates you will need the costume, you may want to book your reservation.
How do I ensure my spot on your schedule?
We will need to have both a deposit payment and measurements in order to reserve either a spot on our custom schedule or to reserve one of our rental costumes.
Which measurements will I need to take?
Depending on the style of the costume and any accessories you may need, measurements needed may vary. When you contact us, we will attach a measurement sheet to let you know which measurements we will need.
Please provide measurements in INCHES.
How important is the accuracy of the measurements?
Very important! Ballet costumes fit very close to the body and are very different from your everyday clothing. We include as much room for fitting and alterations as possible in the design, but even a small difference in measurements can make a large impact overall. Therefore, we ask that you do not add anything for projected growth, or subtract for anticipated change in physique.
We recommend getting the measurements taken by a professional seamstress or other trained individual, and encourage taking pictures during the measuring process of both placement of measuring tape and the number.
For orders that are not local, we do our best to make the costume so that it will fit the dancer as close as possible without the luxury of fittings. However, as with many high-end garments such as wedding gowns, we find that alterations may be needed due to the variations in each unique human form. Often these are as simple as additional bar closures, darts, or adjustments of shoulder elastics and can be done by your ballet company’s wardrobe department or other trained individual.
Please provide measurements in INCHES.
I need my costume soon; do you do rush orders?
We do rush orders for an additional fee. This additional fee will pay for overtime hours, rush ordering fabric, and express shipping. Contact us to find out if there is availability in our schedule. We also recommend considering renting from our existing rental stock if you are in need of a quality costume in a hurry.
I need more than one costume, do you sell groups of tutus?
Yes. We are happy to make a matching set of tutus for your production. Also available are groups of rental tutus for different productions, such as Paquita, The Nutcracker, Giselle, and Swan Lake, so be sure to check out our rental page.
Keep in mind that making a group of costumes will take longer than making one, so it is likely that we will need more advance notice than our typical 3 months for an individual costume.
How will we know how our custom costume or rental is progressing?
You are welcome to email or call us to ask for an update on the progress of your costume.
We also often post work in progress photos on our Instagram and Facebook pages frequently, so you can check there for visuals if you would like.
Keep in mind that we work manufacturing style, so if we have multiple costumes near the same stage of development, we work on all of them at once; for example, all bodice linings may be cut on one day, and all net layers on another. For this reason, and because we devote a lot of time to building a good structural foundation, the costume may not look “exciting” right away.
Questions?
If you didn’t find the answers you were looking for on our FAQ page, you can contact us directly!