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"Be Happy. Be Bright. Be You." - Kate Spade

As dance teams head into competition season, when the pressure and excitement are at an all time high, everyone could use a little extra motivation and encouragement!  To inspire your team, here are our 10 favorite motivational quotes for dancers:

You have your dance costume concept selected and illustrated-  Now it's time to choose fabrics!

Regardless of the look you are trying to achieve, the best fabrics for dance costumes incorporate spandex.  This ensures that your form fitting garment can MOVE with you when you dance.  The fabric you choose depends a lot on your costume concept - do you want something edgy and futuristic (think hologram accents!), or lightweight and elegant (think sheer mesh!).  

Below, we break down our go-to fabric options that most costume companies have available.  There are plenty of novelty and specialty fabrics out there that make amazing costumes - but here are a few of the tried and true basic favorites that will work for any dance costume!

One of the most common questions we hear is this: how long does it take to get a  custom dance costume?! There are a lot of different factors that can contribute to lead times for dance costumes, but generally speaking a design-from-scratch custom dance costume will take 12-18 weeks from gathering inspiration, to production, and to performance.   

A design-from-scratch custom costume is a great option for teams that want a truly one-of-a-kind look, and have greater flexibility with budget ($250+) and time frame (12-18 weeks). Instead of choosing between pre-stocked and catalog styles, this is your chance to become the designer yourself!

There are other custom options that can save you time, like customizing fabrics on a pre-designed style.  For more resources on costumes with quicker turn around times, check out the related post The Best Costume Options For Your Time Frame. 

If you decide a custom costume is right for you, we've broken down each step with time frames below, along with a few tips for saving time!  

Team: Endicott College Dance Team 
Coach: Nicole Sao Pedro-Welch
Location: Beverly, Massachusetts 
Style: Collegiate Dance Team

 Green Bay South West High School found inspiration for their 2015 pom uniform in a Nike shoe!

Inspiration for your next dance costume can come from anywhere: the runway, your Instagram feed, a sneaker, or that gorgeous peach that's sitting on your desk. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming to narrow down your focus, and create a performance concept that is unique from your competitors.  To help, we've rounded up some of our favorite resources for finding dance costume inspiration, as well as some tips to get it all organized! 

Every year we take a look at the runway to forecast the current dance costume trends. We've covered the color of the year for 2018, but what about the fabric of the year? This year, we've seen a resurgence of a certain popular 90's trend on the runway, in everyday fashion and in dance and skate costumes! This trending, elegant fabric is...

The Cherry Creek Pom's with sponsor Carla from Carla's A Classic Design.  

Team: Cherry Creek Poms
Director/Head Coach: Megan Bruhn
Location: Cherry Creek, Colorado
Style: High School Dance Team

Team: Diamond Gems
Coach: Jennifer Keller
Location: Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Style: College Dance Team 

Style: Avatar 

As we head into competition season, we've gotten a lot of requests for the crowd pleasing Transition Costume.  Transition Costumes deliver that WOW factor to the crowd (and the judges!) that everyone likes to see. But they're also COMPLICATED! How do you even begin to design one? Find out what the most effective transition costumes are, and some tips for designing them below! 

Team: Kansas City Chiefs Cheerleaders
Director: Stephanie Judah
Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Style: NFL Cheer