I was thinking about this today, and it came across me that this question would make a good introductory blog post. So here I am. Obviously this entire blog is based around figure skating, a sport I've been involved in most my life. I'm sure you've seen skating on the TV, or glimpsed stunning performances during Olympic events, even if you're not an avid skating fan, or you're just starting out in the wonderful world of figure skating. So what is figure skating anyway?

I've written quite a few posts on the subject of skating outfits and dress design now (see below), and I've been wanting to provide you all with a template dress sketch for a while. Today I finally got around to sitting down at the table and sketching out both a ladies and a girls sketch template, so you can get dress-creative even if you can't draw anything more anatomically correct than a stick-man!

Welcome back, if you've been reading part 1 and part 2 of this series on costume design, or welcome full stop for those of you joining us today for the first time! Be sure to check out the previous posts in this mini-series on breaking down the figure skating dress design process.

Today we are going to be considering the role of shapes in dress design, and how you can use cut and shapes to relay a given message or atmosphere to your audience. So let's get cracking!

Carrying on with our 4-part series in skating costume design, this post is the second part, following up on Part 1: The Design Process Demystified.

Today we’ll be hypothesising two figure skating costumes, to suit two very different styles/music. One will be a Latin outfit, the other something soft and romantic that one might expect to see on a skater who’s music is one of the great works of Chopin or Rachmaninov.
We’re going to be using colour swatches to demonstrate how colour can influence your feelings and convey a certain message to the viewer.