The costume queen of Dancing With The Stars says the secret of her style success is comfort.
Style guru Niamh O’Connor – a former Riverdancer – is the stylist behind the celebrities’ looks on the RTE show.
She revealed how comfort is the most important factor when dressing the stars for the dance floor.
Niamh said: “Celebrities are not pro dancers and it’s our job to make them feel as comfy as possible, so they don’t have to worry about clothes and can concentrate on their performance and the dance.
“Making them feel comfortable is our main thing.
“They have to be able to move and feel good on the dance floor.”
At the same time, Niamh – along with fellow costume supervisor Monica Ennis and the rest of the design team – know the importance of getting the look just right.
Niamh said: “The celebrities are able to embrace the dance more when they have the perfect costume – it enables them to get into character.
“They love the glitz and glamour – it makes them feel like a real dancer for the evening.”
She has a warehouse full of clothes in Dublin’s Fonthill to dress celebrities like this year’s Grainne Seoige, Aengus Mac Grianna, Nina Carberry and Nicolas Roche.
Niamh added: “I have rails and rails of outfits – I have my sequinned jackets and shirts on one rail, the ballroom dresses and feathers on another and the sparkly Latin dresses on another.
“There are skirts in every colour and leopard print, floral and sequins galore.”
She revealed it’s the men’s outfits that take the most time. The women’s stunning gowns are the easy part, as they’re ordered in from a specialist company.
She revealed: “A lot of dresses come in from a company called DSI in London, which also provided them for Strictly Come Dancing. We get the dresses and customise them so they’re not exactly the same – we change bits and pieces to suit the dancer.
“However, the men’s look means putting together 12 entirely new outfits each week.
“Matching the men up can be tricky. The biggest challenge I have is dressing them in colour to match the woman’s dress.
“We buy the men’s outfits from the high street, or online, places like ASOS. The colours of the women’s gowns are so beautiful and vibrant, it’s hard to match that with high street looks.
“We buy stretchy fabric for the men, so they can dance freely, and then we customise them with embellishments like added stones or braids.
“We’d often take the sleeves off – again, for movement. For example, when Matthew McNabb was dancing to the song Skater Boy, we got him a denim jacket from Zara and cut the sleeves off, and then spray painted the back of it with colours that matched his dance partner Laura’s dress.”
She explained that the outfits go up on mannequins, where the male and female looks are “married”.
Then they can be changed right up to show time on Sunday nights.
Niamh added: “Getting items can be time-consuming and we might do that all over the weekend. Once I see them on camera in rehearsal, I might say, ‘Ok, he needs more pink, or she needs more embellishments’.”
Erica Cody’s standout neon lime two-piece was a last-minute switch.
Niamh revealed: “We had her in another neon dress and did a change into that one on the Sunday night.
“The way she was moving in the dance, we could see she needed more movement.
“The colour on her was absolutely amazing, so youthful and vibrant.”
Another favourite was Neil Delamere’s costume, when he did the first dance on opening night. She added: “He was dancing the paso doble and so we put him in a cropped, sequinned blazer and added epaulettes and stones.
“We used some of the matching fabrics from her dress in his jacket. He embraced the drama of it.”
Niamh also liked Nina Carberry’s sexy look for the rumba in week three, which matched the storyline of the sensual dance and showed how her body moved.
Grainne Seoige’s red dress for her paso doble while dancing Devil Woman was chosen to reflect her fiery personality. She started the dance by throwing off a blue cape, which was a nod to her shedding her “ice queen” image. Niamh said Nicolas Roche is a joy to dress.
She added: “He’s up for anything, he’s like: ‘Bring it on!’ Even in the first week, he went with the sequinned trousers and the sheer mesh top.
“He will wear whatever it takes for the number. He’s a gentleman and is in fantastic shape.”
The team transformed rugby player Jordan Conroy and dance partner Salome Chachua into cowboys.
Niamh added: “She wore a monochrome net chiffon skirt with the underlayer removed, which gave it a modern, fresh look. Then we added sequinned fringing. Jordan wore a black, stretchy shirt and we added fringing and silver collar tips and a cowboy belt.”
Niamh knows how to best dress for the dance floor – because she was a pro-dancer herself, performing with Riverdance for 20 years.
She added: “As a dancer myself, I understand what’s needed on the dance floor.”
