All That Skate Summer

Once again, we apologize for the uncharacteristic delay between posts. We're living together for the summer and our internet reception has been spotty at best, so we haven't had much of a chance to find photos from summer shows. We'll be updating as we find new competition costumes for the 2010-2011 season, but right now we're going to talk a little about the costumes from All That Skate Summer.  

Kwak Min-Jung

Short Program: Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel

Min-Jung debuted her new short program at ATSS and we love it, both the program and her new costume. Min-Jung is one of our favorite rising ladies' skaters and this costume is gorgeous. Even though the combination of white dress and Pachelbel's Canon normally screams 'wedding,' we think this looks really age appropriate.

Best of 2009-2010

Now that we're finished with our 2009-2010 Retrospective, we wanted to summarize our feelings about this season. These are our examples of the most well-designed, well-executed, appropriate, aesthetically-pleasing costumes from this season. The skaters in this post exemplify what we're looking for in costumes when we're judging them.

2009-2010 Ice Dance: Part Four

2009-2010 Season In Review: Part 16 of 16

Ice Dance: Part 4 of 4
 

Isabelle Delobel/Olivier Schoenfelder. Current World Ranking: not ranked

Compulsory Dance 

We tried to make witty comments about the little triangle pendant on Delobel's dress, but we were tripped up by the fact that we genuinely can't tell what it is or what it's doing there. Is it a crotch shield? Anyway, we're not crazy about the pinstripes either. Bee thinks they look a little too mob boss and Elle thinks they should have gone with solid black since Delobel's wearing black.

2009-2010 Ice Dance: Part Three

2009-2010 Season In Review: Part 15 of 16

Ice Dance: Part 3 of 4

Federica Faiella/Massimo Scali. Current World Ranking: #7

[top: Olympics, bottom two: World Championships]

 Compulsory Dance

These costumes don't really inspire a lot of passion in us, except for Faiella's dress from Worlds. When we posted this a few weeks ago, this costume was all Bee could think of. She loves it.

2009-2010 Ice Dance: Part Two

2009-2010 Season In Review: Part 14 of 16
Ice Dance: Part 2 of 4

Anna Cappellini/Luca Lanotte. Current World Ranking: #12

[top: Skate America, middle: European Championships, bottom: World Championships]

Compulsory Dance

We love the Euros costumes. We love the black and gold. We love Lanotte's vest and pocket square. Their costume for the rest of the season? Well, we're conflicted on that. Bee loves it. She loves how swingy the skirt is and how glittery the top is. Elle understands why she likes it, but it's a little too frothy for her taste, and she doesn't love the colors.

2009-2010 Ice Dance: Part One

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 13 of 16

Ice Dance: Part 1 of 4

Kristina Gorshkova/Vitali Butikov. Current World Ranking: #25

Compulsory Dance 
Lots of young children enjoy watching Big Bird. Don't skin him to make a skirt, assholes. Bee's pretty sure she wore this exact costume for Halloween once when she was a toddler. She was a duck.

2009-2010 Pairs: Part Four

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 12 of 16

Pairs: Part 4 of 4

 

Maria Mukhortova/Maxim Trankov. Current World Ranking: #5

Short Program: Appassionata by Secret Garden

Bee and Elle's long-standing fight over dip-dying took an unexpected turn when Elle admitted that even she couldn't defend this look. The Jesus look is also not something we really get behind. We agree that changing Mukhortova's dress was probably a good idea, but Bee thinks the newer version of the dress looks like something you'd wear to an eighth grade dance. The sleeves on the earlier version just looked like they'd get in the way, and that should never be a concern during a program.

Dancing with the Stars: Evan Lysacek

We apologize for the uncharacteristic delay between posts. However, we're now both totally done with school for the year, so you can expect more frequent commentary from us.

Week One.

Viennese Waltz: I'll Be by Edwin McCain

Anna looks absolutely fantastic in this dress, but we're not big fans of Evan wearing tails. For some reason, we like him so much better in casual clothes than formal wear, but we recognize that's not really an option on Dancing with the Stars. We will always hate Evan's hair slicked back like that. It really ages him.

2009-2010 Pairs: Part Three

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 11 of 16

Pairs: Part 3 of 4

Tatiana Volosozhar/Stanislav Morozov. Current World Ranking: #6.

Short Program: Dreams Illusion mixed by DJI
If we have to explain to you why this sucks, you're reading the wrong blog. There, we got that out of the way. Now, the real heart of the issue: do you think they make squeaky noises when they rub together in their lifts? We're still in shock that these costumes exist, although by this point, we probably shouldn't be surprised by anything.

Johnny Weir at Miss USA 2010

We were planning a big post of everything Johnny Weir has worn to public events in the months after Vancouver, but we just couldn't help ourselves.

Oh Johnny, please never change.

Photo Credit: WireImage

2009-2010 Pairs: Part Two

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 10 of 16

Pairs: Part 2 of 4

It turns out it's a lot harder to find good photos of pairs costumes than singles costumes. We apologize for the fact that some of these photos don't show the costumes as well as we'd like.

Adelina Canac/Maximin Coia. Current World Ranking: #16

Short Program: Once Upon A Time in the West (soundtrack) by Ennio Morricone 
We're confused by these costumes. The story of their SP seems to be about a bride who runs away with a biker dude. We hate those leather pants, and we don't understand why Canac's tights are only half over her boots. We've seen a few other skaters do this and it never looks good.

2009-2010 Pairs: Part One

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 9 of 16

Pairs: Part 1 of 4

Mylene Brodeur/John Matatall. Current World Ranking: #14

Short Program: What A Wonderful World by Weiss
These are nice, basic costumes for us to start our pairs review with. We really like Brodeur's dress, particularly the color. We're not so sure about Matatall (velvet onesies aren't really our thing) but the costumes tie together without being exactly the same.

2009-2010 Ladies: Part Four

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 8 of 16
Ladies: Part 4 of 4

Laura Lepistö. Current World Ranking: #5

 

Short Program: Imagined Oceans by Karl Jenkins

We have several issues with this costume. First of all, although Bee actually likes the mesh sleeves, the body of the costume is blue-toned purple while the sleeves are red-toned purple. They clash. Secondly, it's actually pretty rare for us to come up with the same exact ideas about a costume independently, but in this case we both looked at those lilac fabric strips and wrote down "party streamers". Elle really doesn't like the way the polka dot pattern continues onto the mesh.

2009-2010 Ladies: Part Three

Sorry for the long wait between posts. It's approaching the end of the semester for both of us, so things are slowing down a bit on the figure skating fashion critique front.

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 7 of 16

Ladies: Part 3 of 4

Júlia Sebestyén. Current World Ranking: #11

Short Program: Song from a Secret Garden by Secret Garden/Libertango by Astor Piazzolla performed by Bond

We think this looks sort of like a prom dress you could find at Deb. It's pretty basic, but tacky.

2009 NHK Ladies Podium

Part three of our ladies' 2009-2010 recap should be up soon, but first we need to print a retraction.

[click to enlarge]

Ashley Wagner, we're sorry for picking on your costume. In context, you look great.

2009-2010 Ladies: Part Two

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 6 of 16 
Ladies: Part 2 of 4 

In our last post, we mentioned how much we hated Yukari Nakano's Firebird costume. We were disturbed to discover that both of our mothers liked it. We are very concerned and think we may both be adopted.  

Elene Gedevanishvili. Current World Ranking: #14

 

Short Program: Fever by Davenport 

This is one of those costumes that one of us (Bee, in this case) hates so viscerally that she can't really articulate why. Elle doesn't mind it so much, although she does think it looks like someone was playing a very sparkly version of pick-up sticks all over Gedevanishvili's body. She also thinks long sleeves were a bad choice here. Patterns like this should be broken up.

2009-2010 Ladies: Part One

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 5 of 16 
Ladies: Part 1 of 4 


Ksenia Makarova. Current World Ranking: #19 

Short Program: Ladies in Lavender (soundtrack) by Nigel Hess 
Ksenia Makarova impressed us so much with her skating this season that she has officially earned herself a spot in our top five current ladies skaters. Unfortunately for her, being our favorite does not give you a free pass to wear ugly shit. (Unless you're Lambiel.) Makarova usually looks stunning in rich colors like this, but the pink and purple together is not working.

Festa on Ice 2010

We plan to continue our 2009-2010 retrospective soon, but we wanted to make a post about a certain favorite skating show of ours while it was still timely. Of all of the off-season shows, Festa on Ice is our absolute favorite. We aren't even going to tell you why in our introduction. We are just going to let this recap speak for itself. (These costumes represent a mixture of 2009-2010 exhibition costumes and brand new costumes for Festa on Ice.)

2009-2010 Men: Part Four

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 4 of 16
Men: Part 4 of 4

  

Jeremy Abbott. Current World Ranking: #2

Short Program: A Day in the Life by the Beatles
If you're going to wear normal clothes on the ice, this is the way to do it. We would like to print out a picture of this costume and distribute it to all the male skaters who are thinking to themselves, "I know what would really stand out on the ice! The clothes I wear every day, but ugly!" Look at that kicky little purple vest. We both love it, even though Bee hates vests and Elle hates skating suits. What makes this work is that Abbott didn't try to add gratuitous sparkles or eye-searing colors. He just found a style and a color palette that worked really well for him, and wore the clothes. This costume wins our Best Use of a Vest Award for 2009-2010. 

2009-2010 Men: Part Three

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 3 of 16
Men: Part 3 of 4

Kevin van der Perren. Current World Ranking: #15

Short Program: Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgski

Despite the fact that we run a figure skating fashion blog, we both believe that if viewers remember your costume more than your skating, you're doing it wrong. Not only is this costume one of the most heavily criticized costumes of this season, it distracts from the fact that Kevin van der Perren is actually a good skater.  Bee almost died watching his 4T+3T+3T in his free skate at Worlds and yet when prompted to talk about KVDP, the first thing that comes to mind is this costume. Costumes should enhance the skating, not overwhelm it. Bottom line, you're a figure skater, not a Cinco de Mayo decoration.

2009-2010 Men: Part Two

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 2 of 16
Men: Part 2 of 4
Yannick Ponsero. Current World Ranking: #10

Short Program: La Corrida by F. Gabriel/Diem by Rodrigo y Gabriela
Several skaters went for some kind of purple/red combination this season, which is truly unfortunate. Between the Lycra top, the gelled hair and the ribbed (for no one's pleasure) vest-onesie, we can't get behind this, although Bee does love the red scarf. Also, there appears to be some sort of wardrobe malfunction going on, since the illusion mesh over his classy plunge neckline doesn't start until considerably below where his chest hair starts.

2009-2010 Men: Part One

2009-2010 Season in Review: Part 1 of 16

Men: Part 1 of 4

Welcome to Sparkly Onesies! This blog is brought to you by Elle and Bee, two fashion fans and college students. As a figure skating fashion blog, we plan to present and comment on costumes for programs and exhibitions as they are designed, debuted and changed around. During the off-season, we'll be doing retrospectives of seasons past, starting with the one that just concluded. We will also be commenting on skaters' fashion off-the-ice and show costumes whenever possible. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email us at sparklyonesies@gmail.com. Also, feel free to follow us on twitter; we are @sparklyonesies.

For our 2009-2010 retrospective, we decided to talk about the top twenty ranked skaters in each discipline. We wrote them all down immediately after Worlds, but didn't pay much attention to order. Of course, by the time we sat down to put these posts together, the World Rankings had been updated on the ISU website and the order of our list become somewhat nonsensical. With that said, here is part one of our 2009-2010 season in review. We are beginning with the men. Skaters are listed with their current world ranking following their names, in case you're wondering how they stand as of today.