I am a notoriously clumsy oaf, a woman more comfortable with a pizza than a pirouette, so it is perhaps incongruous that I have had a lifelong obsession with the best ballet fashion. I don’t even attend ballet recitals much, apart from catching a bit of The Nutcracker on TV at Christmas, or taking an occasional dip into a transgressive Swan Lake. But the accoutrements of ballet have long entranced me—wispy ballet tutus, delicate ballet slippers, cozy ballet sweaters to warm me in an imaginary backstage. These beautiful garments, little changed in over a century, have always had an aura of fairy-tale fantasy, which is maybe why, decades after I wound up my first music box with the twirling ballerina inside—my own version of Citizen Kane’s Rosebud!—you will find me on most days trudging down the subway steps enveloped in a cotton candy tulle tutu, my not-so-dainty feet shoved into flimsy slippers, even in the dead of winter.
I may be an extreme case, but I am not alone in my ballet fixation. Today, the Museum at FIT is unveiling Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern Muse, an exhibition that illustrates the influence of ballet on high fashion from the early 1930s to the late 1970s, and includes 80 objects ranging from Parisian couture to British custom-made clothing to American ready-to-wear. If the couturiers of the 20th century were entranced by the ballet, why shouldn’t we be too?
You can of course buy ballet fashions in an actual dance store, but the costumes there can be scratchy and stiff. As for real slippers—ever trod a city street in authentic ballet shoes, the kind with little suede patches on their bottoms in lieu of soles? Yes, they are a delectable shade of eggshell pink, but after every pebble and cigarette butt, every wad of gum invades their space, they won’t seem as darling. Which is why you—and I—will be grateful for the plethora of ballet-themed items in shops at the moment: Loewe square-toed slippers and crystal-studded flatties at Louboutin; Molly Goddard’s ruffled sheer tangerine skirt; Comme des Garçons Noir’s rebellious sheer-and-shiny tutu; Naadam’s pointelle cardigans; and Trina Turk’s cashmere wrap-around. Add a pink Staud handbag shaped like a rose, and you will feel like Gisele on the G train.
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