Picture yourself as head designer at High Street store Coast. Glamorous party frocks are your bread and butter and this party season you need to turn heads.
Winter’s prevailing trends include a profusion of sequins, crystals, glitter, feathers and marabou trims, so where do you go for inspiration? To the Royal Ballet, of course.
High street retailer Coast obtained exclusive access to the archives of The Royal Ballet to design their new Christmas collection (model pictured is not from the Royal Ballet)
Never knowingly under-sequinned, the Royal Ballet’s costume workrooms provided the springboard for this seven-piece Christmas collection. Prices start at £149 and go up to £295. A little steep, you think? Well, Coast would like you to know that a lot of effort has gone into these designs, for which they gained exclusive access to the Royal Ballet archives.
There are 660 feathers on the Chasse Lace dress (£295) and six metres of their jacquard fabric used for the Arabesque dress (£250).
You may be concerned that a ballet dancer’s body is needed in order to wear this collection, but fear not. When Coast says it’s ‘re-imagined iconic ballet silhouettes’, what they mean is they’ve engineered them for people with a dress size bigger than a 6.
Plie lace dress, £195, coast-stores.com
Releve embellished jumper, £119, coast-stores.com. Adage tulle skirt, £149, coast-stores.com
Allegro dress, £195, coaststores.com
All the styles are available at coast-stores.com up to a size 16, and most up to an 18.
So, for example, the Coupe tulle dress (£225) features a flattering, asymmetric, midi-length skirt. The Allegro dress (£195), meanwhile, is full-length with unstructured pleats — perfect for those of us without the thighs for the corps de ballet.
Don’t love your upper arms? Try the Pirouette fringed dress (£195) with a forgiving cold-shoulder design or the Chasse lace dress with pretty short sleeves in black lace.
The Royal Ballet Collection’s colours are also very wearable, with lots of black, gunmetal and burgundy. Of course, you may want to go a little more Darcey Bussell this Christmas. If so, you’ll love the strapless Plie lace dress (£195) with a lace bodice and tulle skirt. Block shoes optional. See you in the Dress Circle.
Pirouette fringed dress, £195, coast-stores.com
Arabesque dress, £250, coaststores.com
Coupe tulle dress, £225, coast-stores.com. All jewellery from sifjakobs.com and adorejewelry.com