Figure Skating Costumes Through the Years- The Scandalous 90s

Hi everyone! Hope you have a great weekend coming up! I was out on a snow day while writing this, even though we haven't seen one flake yet. Gotta love living in the South. 🙂

Anyway, there is a lot to cover on this post for figure skating's most drama-filled decade: The 90s! Also known as the time I recorded every competition on VHS to re-watch over and over. Those were the days, man. I also started taking beginner skating classes in 1996.

I'm trying my best to keep my focus on the costumes for this one, but I'm sure there will be a few digressions. Let's begin!

Standard Ladies Competition Dress, Part 2

First, we have the "Standard Ladies Competition Dress", 90s style. This is similar to the "standard competition dress" of the 80s, with long sleeves and short skirts, but with some variation. In these dresses, there is more variety in the type of fabrics used, and the embellishments are somewhat less gaudy than their 80s counterparts. From these pictures, you will notice another predominantly 90s trend:

 Midori Ito (Japan)

 Oksana Baiul (Ukraine)

 Kristi Yamaguchi (USA)

 Oksana Baiul (Ukraine)

Chen Lu (China)

Ah, yes, the infamous poofy bangs. Every 90s girl had them. I spent a lot of time in the mirror with my curling iron trying to get it just right. You know you had them too, don't even lie...There were often matching scrunchies to go with these dresses too.

Dudes in Puffy Sleeves

Musketeers and knights, fully of chivalry. Classic romantic looks that have not been seen much since that time.

 Phillipe Candeloro (France)

 Alexei Urmananov (Russia)

 Viktor Petrenko (Ukraine)

Todd Eldredge (USA)

I don't have much else to say on these, but they all had good hair going with the costumes! Phillipe's Three Musketeers program and Todd's First Knight program were some of my favorite men's programs of the time.

Flowing and Romantic

In the 90s, we start to see more variety in costuming for pairs and ice dancers. A lot of different fabrics are used, and we start seeing more watercolor costumes. There are a lot of Romeo and Juliet programs and costume motifs as well.

 Maia Usova and Alexandr Zhulin (Russia)

 Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat (France)

 Jenni Meno and Todd Sand (USA)

 Marina Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko (Russia)

Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler (Canada)

We have a variety of hairstyles with these looks as well, updating as the decade progresses. Love Anissina and Peizerat's costumes. They have just the right amount of detailing and drama and the colors look great on them.

Ice Dancers Being Dramatic

In these pictures, you will see one of the big ice dance rivalries of the 90s between Grishuk and Platov and Krylova and Ovsiannikov.

In this photo, you see Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov of Russia at the 1994 Olympics. She looks just like most of the early 90s lady skaters did, with the "Standard Competition Dress", poofy bangs and matching scrunchie.

Fast forward to the 1998 Olympics, where she has changed her name to Pasha and is channeling Marilyn Monroe. I linked a video on this in my Top Ten All Time Favorite Ice Dance post. That post also features this next couple, their rivals and arch-nemeses Angelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsiannikov.

This dress from their "Carmen" free dance is fierce! It could still be worn today. Damn, the seething hatred in her eyes is palpable! You just don't get this good drama these days in skating.

Sleek minimalism

Mirroring the minimalist trends of the 90s, several skaters opted to tone down on the frippery in favor of a more subdued look, particularly for more serious programs.

 Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov (Russia)

 Nancy Kerrigan (USA)

 Paul Wylie (USA)

Paul Wylie (USA)

These looks stand out in their simplicity and little embellishment. The audience can focus more on the skating without the costumes distracting from it.

Bold and Beautiful

The 90s brought us several expressive skaters with the outfits to match. Some had particularly bold and loud colors. Surya Bonaly and Ilia Kulik provided my favorite flashy and loud costumes of the decade.

With Surya, you also get the bonus of a backflip! Backflipping instantly makes any costume more awesome.

For Ilia, here we have his costume from his 1998 Olympic gold medal performance to Rhapsody in Blue. Certainly an unconventional choice for the Gershwin song.

I don't know which program this is for, but he looks like a harlequin here. That's not a bad thing; it's actually pretty cool. 

The Super Masculine and the Super Feminine

Yuka Sato has a graceful skating style and wears the costumes to accentuate this and her musical choices:

Next, we have Elvis "manly man" Stojko, who combined rock music and his love of martial arts into his skating style.

This one here totally has some Chazz Michael Michaels vibes to it!

The Rise of a Bright Skating Star

I cannot mention the 90s without mentioning Michelle Kwan's meteoric rise to stardom. Her costuming was also some of the most iconic of the decade, matching her music and performance flawlessly. Her style signals a transition to the modern era of skating dresses. We still see many of these styles in the world of competitive figure skating today.

Wait! Isn't this about The Scandalous 90s?

Oh, right. Here you go.

Till next time friends!

Peace out from Icy Trails!!

Figure Skating Costumes Through the Years: I Love The 80s!

Welcome to 2017, my friends! Hope the new year is treating you well and it will be the best one yet! It has been a while since we have done one of my costume posts. Today, we are focusing on the 80s! These last few decades are going to be a little easier for me to write about because I actually remember them! The 80s was when I discovered and fell in love with the sport, so I always remember it fondly.

There are some definite themes flowing through the decade. As it has been the case in most of these previous posts, pop culture and current fashions definitely influence the skating world. Let's take a look.

Spandex everywhere!

As spandex was a popular choice for workout wear and regular clothes in the 80s, this also transferred to figure skating. Men's costumes were in on the trend too!

The Standard Ladies' Competition Dress of the 80s

This consists of a spandex-type fabric with a lot of embellishment. The more embellishment the better! Go big or go home. One reason I love the 80s. The necklines are low with a crapload of illusion netting...not the best thing. Most of the dresses had long sleeves with much shorter skirts than what we have seen in decades past.

 Rosalyn Sumners (USA)

 Caryn Kadavy (USA)

 Caryn Kadavy (USA)

Elizabeth "Liz" Manley (CAN)

The Spandex Men's Jumpsuit (and one lady)

The spandex was not left just to the ladies in the skating world. It was all the rage in men's figure skating too! Most of you remember Scott Hamilton's spandex jumpsuit from his win at the 1984 Olympics:

Well, many other men jumped on board with this trend too. Maybe it's easier to move in then the formal "suit and tie" type looks of the past.

 Here, we have Brian Orser busting a move in this purple number,

and this is Josef Sabovcik in his competitive days before he grew his signature long locks, becoming the bad ass rock star on ice we all know and love. 

Debi Thomas even got in on the spandex jumpsuit trend:

This was refreshingly different from all the "standard ladies competitive dresses" seen above.

Not everyone was into the spandex though. This brings us to another big trend of 80s figure skating costumes:

Flowing Sleeves

Flowing sleeves were the more romantic trend of the decade, primarily worn in men's singles, pairs, and ice dance. 

Here, we have one of the all time greatest pairs teams, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, taking on the trend in their first Olympic appearance in Calgary:

You will see that Katia has the "standard ladies competition dress" thing going, but Sergei is rocking the flowing sleeve.

We also have Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean in their iconic "Bolero" costumes:

These costumes were perfect for the performance and definitely enhanced the drama. 

Last in this category, we have Robin Cousins bravely taking on 3 of the decade's trends at once: the flowing sleeve, the low cut neckline, and embellishment:

Bless. 

Well, he did win gold in the 1980 Olympics, so maybe this was on the tail end of the disco days.

EPIC OLYMPIC SHOWDOWNS!!!

Onward we go, to one of the most exciting and anticipated events of the 80s, the 1988 Olympics! We had 2 epic showdowns! Time to cue up some music:

There, now we've got the mood going. 

First up, we have the ladies event, the Battle of the Carmens!

Here, we have Debi Thomas, the top contender to win for the USA in ladies!

Here, we have East Germany's Katarina Witt, as the flirty Carmen!

Katarina Witt skated and flirted her way to her second gold with this routine. It is legend.

One unfortunate side effect of this battle was to bring about what is arguably the most overplayed skating song of all time. I will post on this later.

Next, the men's event, the Battle of the Brians!

We have Brian Orser of Canada, in the red military themed costume!

And Brian Boitano of the USA in the navy blue military themed costume!

Brian Boitano wins! And why did he win??? He made a plan and saw it though!

And here we go....

Come on y'all, you knew it was coming. 

Last part of the post, as this is the last decade of the big production ice shows:

Feathers and frippery on show costumes

While the 80s were the decade of flashiness, the show costumes take the cake. Here is Katarina Witt in an exhibition costume:

Who the hell am I kidding? I love this. I would wear it right now. It would definitely need some more feather coverage on the skirt, and I'd probably end up looking like a bird or something. Totally don't care, this is fabulous.

Next, we have the ladies of Ice Capades going out for a group number:

Some more Vegas showgirl type drag.

This last one is very special to me. This show is what got me hooked on figure skating. It was the 1987 Ice Capades with Teddy Ruxpin. I was 5 years old and my mom and grandma took me to see this show. Little did they know it would create an obsession that has gone on for nearly 30 years! Here is the poster:

I hope you all enjoyed this walk down memory lane, and we will pick up soon in the 90s. Later!

Autumn at Icy Trails ⛸