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Skaters: Dress for Success

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

When Sarah Hughes placed third at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Staples Center last month, it wasn’t the seven triples in her long program that people were buzzing about. It was that dress--the underwhelming number in flesh-tone chiffon.

“Poor Sarah. Team Hughes should hire me as a consultant!” wrote a New York City woman on https://www.fsworld.com, a message board for figure skating devotees. “The long program dress was too frumpy and pale for her.”

It didn’t end there. Another writer complained about the navy-blue costume Hughes wore for her short program, judging it “too busy and too old lady!”

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Although the 16-year-old skater had earned a place on the U.S. Olympic team, that wasn’t enough. The consensus among fans and experts was that she needed a make-over and needed it fast. In a matter of days, Hughes hired Jef Billings, an Emmy-winning skating costume designer, to give her a fresh look.

“A costume is important,” said Robin Wagner, Hughes’ coach. “If the skating is close, it could mean a hundredth of a point.”

At the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, figure skaters will be competing in a sport in which winning a medal may have as much to do with their appearance on the ice as with their athleticism. “It’s an opinion sport,” said Peggy Fleming, the 1968 gold medal winner turned figure skating commentator for ABC.

U.S. gold medal hopeful Michelle Kwan, 21, is expected to wear an outfit by Vera Wang; Sasha Cohen, 17, who hopes to study fashion herself one day, is designing her own.

Hughes’ coach said the decision to go with a new designer so close to the Games was not motivated by anything more than a desire for something new. How far the skater will go with her new look is anybody’s guess.

“She’s very gray, she’s kind of pale and her hair is neither here nor there, color-wise. It looks like a short haircut that’s growing out,” said the Los Angeles-based Billings, who also designs costumes for competitor Todd Eldredge and for the traveling “Target Stars on Ice” show. “I suggested she get a shorter, cuter haircut and go red.”

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In any case, he added, she definitely should avoid “mother-of-the-bride-looking” dresses. “I’m thinking of her as a gamin: kind of Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn-ish.”

Like everything else, it seems, figure skating has gone Hollywood.

“It is entertainment as well as a sport, and costumes are vital to the whole performance,” said Yuki Saegusa, a vice president at the sports marketing firm IMG who represents several figure skaters. “It’s analogous to the Academy Awards. People love to see what stars are wearing and people love to see what skaters are wearing.”

Indeed, figure skating draws more TV viewers than any other Olympic sport--winter or summer. And the days when a skater’s mother sewed her Olympic costumes are long gone.

Today the design process is a team effort involving designer, skater, coach, choreographer and sometimes parent. During the last 15 years, several designers, including Christian Lacroix, Donna Karan and Wang, have begun outfitting skaters. Their creations can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $13,000--reportedly what silver medalist Nancy Kerrigan paid for her memorable 1994 champagne-colored, rhinestone-encrusted dress by Wang.

A typical woman’s skating costume is a lightweight Lycra leotard with sleeves, shoulder straps or a halter top. Straps usually are elastic so they stay on the shoulders, and rhinestones may be sewn directly onto the elastic. Beads and stones must be tightly anchored so they don’t fall off and endanger the skater. Sometimes skaters even sew their hair into buns with yarn because the last thing one wants on the ice is an errant hairpin.

Ideally, costumes should feel like a second skin. They are built to fit snugly around the bust without boning or under-wires, which could be uncomfortable. See-through “illusion” fabric gives the look of a bare neckline or back while still providing a good fit. Multiple fittings and trial runs on the ice ensure that nothing rides up or pops off.

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Men’s outfits usually are one piece, with pant legs that loop around the skates. But they can be as flamboyant as women’s costumes. At the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada, Czech skater Petr Barna raised eyebrows in a sequined purple unitard that exposed his chest hair.

The International Skating Union (ISU) does have rules about the outfits--they must be “modest, dignified and appropriate,” not “garish or theatrical.” But who can say what is in the eyes of the beholder? A judge’s assessment of a skater’s costume is about as objective as a fashion critic’s review of a runway show. Unlike a fashion show, however, skaters who break the rules are subject to more than harsh words: They can be hit with deductions in their scores for presentation.

Nine judges from different countries evaluate each Olympic figure skating discipline, which consist of multiple competitions. For singles and pairs, there are two--the short technical program and the free skate. For each competition, a judge issues marks from 0 to 6 each for technical merit and presentation, which count equally in determining a skater’s ranking.

Officials from the ISU insist that judges are not swayed by appearance. But costumes, like everyday clothing, can send a subtle message. In 1995, when Kwan was a 15-year-old wanting to make the transition from junior to adult competitor, she simply changed her appearance.

Portraying Salome in her dance at Skate America, an annual international competition sponsored by the U.S. Figure Skating Assn., Kwan gave up her ponytails and put her hair in a bun. She wore makeup for the first time, despite initial objections from her father, and her costume was a surprisingly sexy purple dress with a bare midriff. Playing the biblical temptress, she won the competition.

“The costume is one of the finishing touches, but you don’t want it to be distracting,” said Kristi Yamaguchi, who wore a black dress with a plunging neckline and gold embroidery for her 1992 Olympic gold medal-winning program to Ernesto Lecuona’s “Malaguena.”

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“You want it to complement your music and the character you are trying to play, but at the same time, you always want to be elegant.”

Costumes should express a skater’s personality without being over the top, said 1984 U.S. gold medalist Scott Hamilton. “Especially with the widespread use of nude fabric, you often find yourself wondering, ‘Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?’ What you wear on the ice shouldn’t be so noticeable that it can be discussed and ridiculed.”

Skaters also have to consider the backgrounds of the judges. Europeans tend to be fans of flamboyant costumes because of their theatrical tradition, Hamilton said, but Americans prefer understated looks.

In 1994, costumes helped define the notorious Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding rivalry. Wang’s swan-like dresses cast Kerrigan, a self-described tomboy, as America’s sweetheart. Meanwhile, Harding’s glitzy showgirl outfits, teased hair and heavy makeup only served to demonize her: She was tacky.

Memorable costumes such as Kerrigan’s can position a figure skater for endorsement deals and professional skating opportunities. “Someone who’s perceived as ladylike might have different kinds of endorsements than someone who is seen as rough and tumble,” said Abigail Feder-Kane, a contributor to “Women on Ice,” a 1995 book of feminist essays about the pre-Olympic attack on Kerrigan orchestrated by a man who turned out to be Harding’s ex-husband.

Today, Kerrigan continues to profit from her skating, touring with “Champions on Ice.” The most recent appearance of the eighth-place Harding was on a newsmaker-themed episode of NBC’s “The Weakest Link,” along with 15-minute celebrities Darva Conger, Kato Kaelin and Gennifer Flowers.

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When figure skating competition began in the late 1800s, women wore demure ankle-length skirts with several petticoats for added warmth, and men wore coats and wool tights.

The first fashion trendsetter was Sonja Henie, the three-time Norwegian Olympic champion--she won in 1928, 1932 and 1936. Her major contribution was lifting skirt hems to the knee.

By the 1940s, women wore every color and fabric imaginable, from cherry satin and red velvet to white fur and pink chiffon, according to “The Official Book of U.S. Figure Skating.”

Bright colors continued to be popular for women in the 1950s. For men, the standard was a black tuxedo with an Eisenhower jacket, made famous by two-time Olympic gold medalist Dick Button. In the 1960s, one-piece stretch “monkey suits,” with a crease at the waist to simulate the conventional two-piece suit, replaced tuxedos.

In 1968, Fleming departed from the ethereal chiffon looks then in vogue, winning the gold in Grenoble, France, in a chartreuse matte jersey dress that, like all her costumes, was sewn by her mother. “I think it probably cost about $20,” Fleming said. Her mother chose chartreuse because the color shares its name with a French liqueur made by Carthusian monks. “She thought it would endear me to the French people,” Fleming said.

Lycra and spandex and new plastic sequins and beads allowed skaters to jump higher and sparkle more in the 1970s. But for all the headlines Dorothy Hamill’s wedge hairdo attracted at the 1976 Winter Games, her pink outfit, sewn by a friend’s mother, was fairly staid.

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By the 1980s, skating fashion reached “Dynasty” proportions. Costumes were at their most outrageous at the 1988 Olympics, when American Debi Thomas wore a beaded body stocking and East German Katarina Witt made tongues wag in azure ostrich feather-trimmed bikini briefs and a see-through skirt. (Her sexy style eventually landed her in Playboy.)

The next year, the ISU issued the rule known in skating circles as the “Katarina Rule,” about costumes being modest and dignified. Women are required to wear skirts that cover their hips and buttocks. Men are prohibited from wearing tights or sleeveless clothing or exposing chest hair. They must wear trousers. Beads, sequins and feathers cannot be excessive.

At least some believe that the rules are misguided, even silly. “The sport already has an image problem because it’s considered froufrou,” said Jirina Ribbens, a figure skating expert.

“And we add to that by making costumes an issue? Who’s to say what’s decent? I’d like to see a rule that skaters have to wear plain sports costumes.”

Feminist author Naomi Wolf believes the sport’s emphasis on appearance undercuts the meritocracy of athletic competition. “Either figure skaters should wear a uniform or sumo wrestlers and football players should perform in diverse, attention-grabbing high-fashion styles.”

For his 1984 gold medal performance, Hamilton opted out of sequins in favor of a red, white and blue converted speedskating suit.

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“All the guys before me were being portrayed in the media as artists, but they were doing these unbelievably athletic things on the ice,” said Hamilton, who is a commentator for NBC at the Salt Lake City Games.

“I wanted to be considered more of a mainstream athlete, and the best way for me to do that was to eliminate the costume issue altogether.” On the other hand, the spectacle of beauty is part of why figure skating draws such high TV ratings. “If we make the sport boring, it might end up doing skaters more harm,” Feder-Kane said. Opportunities for commercial endorsements and tours on the professional circuit could dry up.

“People are fascinated by what skaters wear,” said Billings, the designer. “At the Academy Awards, Joan and Melissa [Rivers] do their red-carpet thing. Maybe we should have someone do that for skating.”

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