Crystal Skate

Sometimes more is less, and although this doesn't usually apply to figure skating ('the more spectacular, the better' is how the motto goes here), this saying certainly seems to summarise the ice dancers' approach to their free dance costumes this season. Choosing to dial down the theatrics in the free dance might have been a consequence of this being the first season after the Olympic Games. Skaters tried so hard to impress last season, that they might have felt they needed to take a breather this time around. Or perhaps they kept it simple because the paso doble was flamboyant enough to draw attention on its own. Whatever the reason, this season was, costume-wise, one of the plainest. There were a few exemptions from the rule, of course, and they stood out like gems in a bowl of rocks. That's not to say that the simpler costumes were ugly, even ordinary rocks have their own wild-sort-of-beauty after all, but they simply couldn't compare to the more sophist...

Ever since Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet that 'the apparel oft proclaims the man', this phrase has been circling the globe, confusing people as to whether they should translate it into modern English as 'clothes make the man,' which is what it means literally, or 'clothes don't make the man,' which is what Shakespeare truly meant. Figure skating has distanced itself from this dilemma as it can only translate it as  'the costumes always make the figure skater.' Costumes are as significant in figure skating as they are in theatre because both skaters and actors put on a performance and often play a role. So if an actor cannot play Hamlet in a clown costume, neither can a figure skater skate to its soundtrack in one. To celebrate the beauty and originality of figure skating costumes, I decided to write a series of blog entries which take a look at the best and worst costumes of the glorious season that has just ended. The best costumes in figure skati...