The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Welcome to the Strictly sparkle factory
60 dressmakers 500 outfits 3.5m rhinestones...
Caroline Leaper learns what it takes to create the most glittering gowns on TV – including 3.5 million rhinestones and a whole lot of Lycra
It’s a particularly grey afternoon on a particularly grey industrial estate in Croydon, south London, but none of that matters because Gerald Schwanzer is talking me through his rhinestone collection.
‘We have over 750 types of crystals in stock, with different sizes, shapes and colours,’ he explains, opening and closing a cabinet of glittering mini-drawers at speed. ‘On an average dress we use about 7,000 stones, so if you’re doing 500 dresses over the series that’s about 3.5 million rhinestones. We nearly always work with Preciosa or Swarovski stones, not sequins, which are plastic. Not many people would know that the weight of the rhinestones is much more satisfying when you swoosh.’
Schwanzer is the managing director of DSI London, the company that produces dazzling costumes week after week for West End productions, Dancing on Ice and, yes, Strictly Come Dancing. Its atelier is perhaps more colourful than any Parisian couture house I’ve been inside (‘Hawaiian-pink Lycra is the most popular material of the season once again’), yet you might never guess what was going on behind the corrugated garage doors if you didn’t know to look.
It’s a Monday, which means that the team at DSI has just received its weekly briefing from Vicky Gill, Strictly’s esteemed costume designer, and they now have three days to cut, sew, stone and trim all the necessary costumes before they are due to be delivered to the BBC studios in Elstree on Thursday.
‘The pressure is very high,’ Schwanzer confirms. ‘But our secret is that because everything is made from stretch fabrics, we have fewer concerns than you may think about the fit. What we make here is performance wear, it is different to normal clothes. These are pieces for sport, but with beautiful embellishment. It is a cross between haute couture and extremely robust swimwear.’
DSI employs a team of 60, including pattern cutters, machinists, designers and stoners (Schwanzer’s word, not mine), who between them bring Gill’s sketches to life in Lycra. They produce and sell everything that a professional latin or ballroom dancer could need; the headquarters is a rabbit warren of stock rooms and workshops, containing everything from boxes full of bra cups, to shelves of practice shoes, to salsa-music CDS. They have 2,000 cans of ‘Rude Nude’ fake tan in stock at any given moment ‘just in case’. Of a national shortage, perhaps?
‘We do keep an enormous amount of materials, which is a logistical nightmare, I assure you,’ Schwanzer explains. ‘You need around seven different components per dress, or 10 if it’s a complicated one. It could include laces, Lycra, zips, threads, feather boas and fringes. Everything must be colour-matched – in the dance world it’s all about colour – so we make every single component in 40 colours that are exclusive to us. Even things like fringe trims; you need them available in four different widths and in the 40 colours. We keep 10,000 items on site at any time.’
Housing what seems like the largest haberdashery inside the M25, Schwanzer says, has its benefits and drawbacks. ‘We’re probably mad to produce here in London, because it’s so expensive,’ he sighs. ‘But our point of difference is that we are making in Britain [even his tulle comes from Nottingham, the shoes Leicester] and we can turn these outfits around at speed for shows that are happening in London.’
At the start of a new Strictly series, Gill and the DSI team literally size up the contestants, producing mannequins to the measurements of each star to fit their costumes on every week. I’m here ahead of the semi-final show, so there is a line-up in the studio of body doubles for Faye, Ashley, Stacey, Lauren and Joe, with a few of the dummies set to be ripped to pieces before the final, when you’re reading this.
‘Our secret is the dummies,’ says Schwanzer. ‘We create them according to the size of the contestant, starting with a standard-size dummy and then padding it out from there with cellophane and bubble wrap where necessary. If they lose weight, we take a layer off. Kate Silverton has lost the most I think this series, so we have had to change the shape of hers dramatically. When it’s over, we rip it all off and start again, so an Ed Balls dummy will then be stripped back to a normal block-size dancer shape at the end of the series.’
Everything that the DSI team creates for Strictly comes through Gill, a dance-costume specialist and consultant who has known Schwanzer for more than 20 years. It is she who deals directly with the producers to determine what will translate for the show’s themes each week, and it is she who must coax reluctant contestants into thinking a life in spandex is right for them.
‘The celebrities are always going to be very nervous and more self-conscious at the start of the series,’ Gill explains. ‘We first meet in early July to try lots of frocks, try on shoes, chat about the show, take measurements and answer any questions they have. No two years are the same, every personality brings something new to the table. Everyone is of course allowed to have a say, I try to listen to their worries early on and find solutions with fit, fabric choices or little tweaks inside the garment to balance shape. I want to remove any exterior worries, leaving them to concentrate on the performance as much as possible.’
Schwanzer agrees. ‘It is always interesting to watch someone who hasn’t come from this world, when they see themselves in the costume for the first time,’ he says. ‘The men’s shirts are harnessed in through the underpants [like a bodysuit] to stop them from riding up when they lift their arms, which people always find odd when they first try them on. The suit jackets have to be so tight too, we can’t risk an ugly shoulder line.’
The first time a contestant gets to try on their costume is the Friday before Saturday’s live show, so Gill acknowledges that she must build trust with the contestants. Who gets to wear the
‘We first meet in July… Celebrities are always going to be self-conscious at the start’
most bling is a subject for consideration each week. ‘I try to be fair and share the sweeties out,’ Gill laughs. ‘I lean towards the concept that needs it most. It’s tricky, a constant juggle of time and money.’
If you were to buy a dance costume, DSI charges up to £2,000 for an elaborate showstopper, but the Strictly commissions are rented out again and again after their initial use on the show. Savvy Schwanzer works with outposts of the franchise in Sweden, Slovenia, Ireland, Austria, Costa Rica and more, as well as, of course, serving a thriving professional dance world.
In a pinstripe suit of 1980s proportions and a wide-knot tie, Schwanzer looks like the consummate businessman, but occasionally as he gestures elegantly at rails of ombré feather trims, you spot a flash of his electric-blue diamanté cufflinks. He knows every one of his 60 employees, many of whom have worked with him since he joined the firm in 2001. He now runs the place with his business partner Malcolm Hearn. ‘The machinists and stoners are real artists,’ he says. ‘You have to have endless patience to be a stoner – I’ve done it, it’s quite therapeutic. It’s a challenge to find good stoners and good machinists in this country, they are like gold dust.’
When having his portrait taken, Schwanzer stands in third position, the ballet pose, and this is the only visual giveaway – other than the cufflinks – that he adores the world in which he works. He was once a lawyer by day, but danced professionally until he was 31. Foxtrot was his forte.
‘I wasn’t bad, I was somewhere between 50th and 100th in the world,’ he says. ‘I moved to London because England was the Mecca for dancing and in Austria I was number four for many years, so I wanted to get better.’ One of his competitors was Anton du Beke, and his dance partner Erin Boag, a story that came full circle as it ultimately led to DSI working on Strictly.
‘We were sponsoring Anton and Erin as they did their shows and then they were booked to do the first series of Strictly in 2004, and their dresses came from us,’ he explains. ‘The connection was what started it all; now we’ve done 15 series and made thousands of costumes.’
Having been a straight Austrian lawyer who enjoyed competitive ballroom dancing on the weekends (Mrs Schwanzer also works at DSI), Schwanzer admits that he has seen a huge attitude shift towards the sport thanks to Strictly. He offers tours of his workshops and I believe him when he says that no one leaves without smiling.
‘The difference now is that if we tell people what we are doing, they say “wow”,’ he says. ‘Before, nobody took us seriously. We looked kind of old-fashioned and people thought we were weird to enjoy dance. I remember being embarrassed to say about my work to people who didn’t understand. The BBC has done a lot for the dance industry – there is a feel-good factor attached now and everyone wants to know more about it. We work so hard and, finally, what we do can be seen and appreciated by everybody.’
To book a Behind the Seams tour at DSI London, visit dsi-london.com. The Strictly Come Dancing final is tonight on BBC One