Costume Designers Steven Lee And Daniela Gschwendtner Interviewed About DWTS And More

Rue Now talked with Dancing With The Stars costume designers Steven Lee and Daniela Gschwendtner. Read on for how complex and challenging designing can be. I love what they said about Mark Ballas.

RLL: From the jive to the paso doble, we know the dances are certainly complex. Is there a dance genre that’s more complex when it comes to the costumes?
SL and DG: Each dance has its own complexity. But since we’ve created all the costumes for so long, there’s no difference in difficulty between the dances.

RLL: Each week, there’s a time crunch. How long is the concepting phase, and how many people are on your team to get the job done?
SL and DG: Our time frame from concept to completion is from Tuesday to Monday. That gives us less than a week to sketch, shop fabrics, build, fit, and rhinestone the costumes – time is always tight.

RLL: We know Mark Ballas tends to choreograph some pretty out-there routines. From a costume perspective, is this something you look forward to?
SL and DG: Mark is always very creative – we really enjoy collaborating with him. He usually wants designs that are unique, and it really challenges us to make them come to life. It often involves unusual fabrics, custom painting, and textural leathers and materials. We can really think outside of the box when designing for Mark and his partners.

You can read more of this fun interview at Rue Now.