Secrets of Swan Lake: Classical Costumes | Royal Winnipeg Ballet

Hello, my name is Alina Zharska and I represent Royal Winnipeg Ballet Wardrobe. I'm a cutter here. I work from 2001. Two years I was a sewer to get some experience and from 2003 I started to work as the cutter, junior cutter. I work with designer and after that when I get some sketches for the show I start to do my patterns and also I have to think about how it's gonna made and how much time we have to do, for example, some costume. In here on the stands I have some costume from the Swan Lake. This is the Spanish costume for the lady. I think it's gonna take approximately almost one week to do this costume. These costumes around 25 years old. Why they last so long time? Because the costume always has this nice cotton backing. It makes dress more stronger. This is really important for dancers because when they dance they work really hard and the costume becomes so wet. That means we have to put cotton underneath because the cotton absorbs really well. After dry cleaning it looks like new one. For example, this body is made out of brocade fabric and it's really nice. It has some few fabrics which are matched to each other and it's really strong fabric. I wouldn't say this dress 25 years old. And this is the Masurka dress for the lady also. This dress made out of nice fabric and front made everything was made by hand. This is all sewn by hand also. And this nice fabric is velvet. It's really strong. It lasts long time and it looks really rich on the stage. When we buy fabrics for the costumes, we try to buy really strong fabrics. This is really important. And if they are natural, they made from the natural products, it's really good. Because it's really comfortable for the dancers also. The show was built almost 25 years ago. And I think it was take around 9 months to do everything. I don't know how much it's take to build 25 years ago this show. But if we would redo it right now, at this time, it was cost approximately $170,000. I hope everyone will come to see our show. Because we put lots of our love and lots of our work into these costumes. And everybody will enjoy to see this show. Thank you.