Intraseasonal Costume Transformations on Program Perception

The fun costume polls got me thinking about how costume changes within a season could influence the perception of skaters' programs. For example, this season Yi Christy Leung made a dramatic costume transformation from Asian Open to JGP Bratislava. Imo, this very unique costume helped make her program much more memorable and a standout within the field among fans. Virtue/Moir showed a full costume spectrum last season, from their premiere at Autumn Classic, Skate Canada, Olympic Team, all the way to the Olympic Individual Event, which nicely parallels the evolution of their free dance, as they continually refined their costumes and program, giving each outing a fresh feel.

What intraseasonal costume changes come to mind that influenced your perception of a program?

I tend not to think of mid season costume changes as reflection of some wonderful maturation process, but that the skaters just still couldn’t get it right

And I say this as the fan of the king of early season, mid-season and late season costume changes, Jason Brown. I don’t think he’s had one season where he didn’t change his LP costume, but it never affected my opinion of the program. After all, his best performance of “Inner Love” was in that horrid velvet blue onesie.

Jason at his best transforms the costume, not the other way round. And I’m hoping this year, Rohene’s Bedazzler stays in the US

Another example is Cappellini/Lanotte's Charlie Chaplin FD. At NHK 2016 and Worlds 2017, the choreography and program content is pretty much the same but Anna's costume especially underwent a complete transformation. I think they changed the costumes to give a closer portrayal of the black and white film. However, I preferred Anna's pink/red costume because I found the black costume seemed 'heavier' for their light-hearted program and doesn't showcase her lines like the former costume does, as seen from the opening straight line lift for example. Both entertaining performances still.

Well with some skaters it almost seems like the dress doesn't really matter to the program, just as long as it's prettyyyyyyyyyy, and I find in such cases that my attention doesn't go to the costume at all. Like it's there but it doesn't really matter.

But sometimes there are other considerations, like how Javier Fernandez changed his Don Quixote costume to a similar one with modifications for I can't remember what reason.

I would've liked to see Alex Shibutani in a hot pink shirt, that would've added more to that SD

Spirals for Miles said:

I would've liked to see Alex Shibutani in a hot pink shirt, that would've added more to that SD

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They did make it darker for the Olympics, before that it was basically the same flesh tone as his skin

I really didn't like Mao Asada's GPF13 LP costume to the point I didn't want to watch the program again.
Then in Sochi she had the most perfect costume that made her special LP skate even better.

You can think of Julia Lipnitskaya's Elvis program.
At Challengers her dress was tie-dye like, rainbow colorful, and made her look quite younger than she actually was, plus those weird bright blue gloves. At GP France she showed up in a 60s black formal-like dress which made her look more mature. And in Russian Nationals she changed the ponytail into a hairstyle that fit the new dress.

el henry said:

And I say this as the fan of the king of early season, mid-season and late season costume changes, Jason Brown. I don’t think he’s had one season where he didn’t change his LP costume, but it never affected my opinion of the program. After all, his best performance of “Inner Love” was in that horrid velvet blue onesie.

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Sorry el henry, but your opinion is wrong . The Tristan and Isolde tan pants + ugly boot covers made that LP totally mehhhhh until he lost the boot covers and changed to black pants for the World Championships.

Similar to Virtue/Moir, Savchenko/Massot have also shown some diversity in their costumes over each season, especially Aljona. At the debut of their iconic FS she had originally a different dress, which I personally didn't really like. It looked kind of sharp and accented her muscles too much, so that I had the impression that the male energy was concentrated on Aljona, whereas the female energy was on Bruno, who at the time looked kind of unsecure (sorry if this sounds too odd ) During the season she changed the dress to the one that she wore at the Olympics. That dress was beautiful and complemented her body very well. She also looked much more softer and as if with the balance in the costumes came also the balance in their partnership and work. And we all saw the result.. they really gave life to that divine choreography from Christopher Dean. Should I also mention that the colour of the costumes matched the boards at the Olympics? This was so cool, as if I knew right from the beginning that the stars would align for them. :agree: