Ballet Style Over the Ages: 1500s - 1700s

Hey everyone!

October is here! The air's crispy, the vibes are getting autumnal no matter where you are in the world, and things are getting just a tiny bit more spooky (thanks, Halloween 🎃).

All around the world, festivals like Día de los Muertos, Samhain, and Japan’s Kawasaki Halloween Parade bring out wild, creative costumes. And what's the one thing they all have in common (besides being perfectly timed with one of our authors' birthdays, but that’s not important right now 😜)?

Costumes! Spooky, stylish and sometimes themed yet always statement-making.

And honestly... is it really balletcore without the iconic ballet style and costumes?

So this October, as an ode to all things festive and costumed, we're kicking off a new series that dives deep into how ballet style and costumes have evolved over the centuries.

Let's take a twirl through time. 💃🏻 First stop: the 1500s - 1700s

But, wait!!

Refresh your memory with this short ballet history lesson: https://theballerinaprojectindia.blogspot.com/2024/05/exploring-ballet-its-meaning-and-history.html

Court Etiquette in Disguise

At the start, ballet was really just a way to codify Italian court etiquettes. How to sit, stand, approach the king, talk to other courtiers, dance in events and basically just how to be that one fancy, slightly snobbish (but very likable) courtier. 🎩

Ballet then was more about measured, elegant walking and bowing with turned-out feet, graceful glides, poised posing, and deep reverences, and a lot less about athletic tricks (unless you count the sheer strength it took to do all this in those outfits).

Back then, the aesthetic was all about flaunting your wealth and power while also being modest enough to show your subordination to the ruler and your religious devotion. Courtiers wore an incredible range of clothes.

Women wore their hair up under elaborate headdresses or veils. Layers were the rage and high heels were in. Expensive fabrics were everything, along with tons of jewelry, long bell-shaped sleeves and long puffy gowns. 

Men weren’t left behind. They rocked rich fabrics, towering headdresses, dramatic capes (for that superhero vibe), leggings to show off muscle, and pointy-toed shoes with heels.

All of these screamed, "I'm a part of the royal court and I can afford all of this luxury!" 👑

Enter France 

When the Italian noblewoman Catherine de' Medici married the King of France, she didn't just carry her best gowns and jewels with her. She brought the future of ballet with her. 🩰

In a few decades, the art form had crossed the Alps into a new era where ballet got bigger, fancier and a whole lot more dramatic. Courtiers in France were already fans of the big and bold, and with ballet in the picture, things got way more interesting.

Enormous skirts, heavy embroidered fabrics and piles of sparkly jewelry became commonplace. Ballet was now everything it was back in Italy plus more of well... everything. 

The Renaissance was in full swing, and with it came access to top-notch fashion: ornate headpieces, fluttering ribbons, ornate masks, and every luxury a royal wardrobe could dream up. 💅

Dancing in these outfits was still tricky (read: nearly superhuman), so the style stayed mostly the same.

The Ballet Glow Up ft. The Sun King

Enter the original ballet influencer: King Louis XIV, the Sun King himself. He didn’t just love ballet; he lived it, reportedly practicing almost every day. His most famous role? Apollo, the Sun God (very on brand ☀️).

With him, ballet leveled up from fancy party rules to a serious royal art form. Steps were codified and the five main positions were established and the very first ballet school, the Académie Royale de Danse, was founded under his reign. 

And the costumes? FINALLY a glow-up.

No more just wearing your regular court outfit. Dance costumes were now tailored to show off the technique just a bit more. They were still heavy, luxurious and a bit less mountain sized and dumpling shaped. 🗻🥟

Men wore short jackets and breeches to reveal that awesome legwork while women were (unfortunately) kept offstage. The dresses were too huge to move in, and society wasn’t ready for women to dance in lighter clothing. Heels stayed in fashion for everyone.

The whole look remained powerful and spectacular, just a bit more practical and whole lot more ballet.

And that's your cue to twirl back to the present. 💃🏻

What you just read is barely a glimpse of the style and fashion of early ballet dancers. If this fascinated you, go down a search rabbit hole and see just how extra ballet was back then. 🕳️

Next week we'll be leaping back to slightly more recent time: The Romantic Era, when ballet actually began to look like the ballet we know today.

Stay tuned... things are about get magical.

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