Daniela Gschwendtner And Steven Lee Chat On The Ins And Outs Of Costume Designing For DWTS

Rarely do we get to hear from the costume designers Of Dancing With The Stars, but, here is Daniela Gschwendtner and Steven Lee talking with TV Insider about the designs they are the most proud of (I love what they said on Mark Ballas!) and a horror story too….

What designs are you most proud of?
Lee: We’ve always liked the theme nights like movie-themed or Disney night. Those are fun because we get to make our own interpretation. When we did The Little Mermaid’s Ursula with Rumer Willis and Val Chmerkovskiy, Val was the eel. We were like, ‘How do you make Val an eel?’ We ended up doing this shirt with scales on it.

Gschwendtner: We like doing something where you obviously can’t do it how its drawn. Otherwise you can’t dance in it, or it’ll look like a hokey, weird Halloween costume. It needs to seem stylish and cool, and I think those are the best challenges.

Lee: We’ve always liked Mark Ballas for these. He’s not with us this season, but he always gets creative. For Alice in Wonderland he’s been the White Rabbit, Woody in Toy Story, he’s been a ninja, a peacock, Adam of Adam & Eve – he does so much. We love that. It’s also cool that he lets us do our thing and not get in the way. I think when people over-think it, like too many cooks in the kitchen, it gets a little messy, but he just lets us do our job. Those are the most fun though, the ones with the themes.

Do you have any live-show horror stories?
Gschwendtner: Last season, Gleb Savchenko stepped on Jana Kramer’s skirt during dress rehearsal and he absolutely destroyed it—it ripped completely in half. We had to make a completely new skirt right before the show!

More at TV Insider.