Figure Skating Fashion Minute: NHK Trophy 2011--The Ice Dancers & The Pairs!

Fiery Latin Dances, Big Band Prepsters, Lovestruck Romantics with No Fashion Sense and more...

The Ice Dance Medalists: (Left to right) Silver Medalists Weaver and Poje of Canada. Gold winners Shibutani and Shibutani of the USA, and Bronze Medalists Illinykh and Katsalapov, Grand Prix of Japan 2011

This weekend, Sapporo Japan and the Makomanai Sakisui Heim (say that three times!) Arena (above) was "Skating Central" and played host to the NHK Trophy/Grand Prix of Japan for 2011-2012. In my last post, I talked about The Men and their costumes--well, the ones I liked (for the most part) and now it's time to recap the Ice Dancers and the Pairs:

Reed and Reed of Japan: Brother and sister Ice Dancing team of Cathy and Chris Reed are half American and half Japanese--she renounced her US Citizenship in 2009 and he has dual citizenship (for now). They competed for Japan and in terms of their costumes (which is of course what I'm most interested in here!), I really liked their Short Program Latin-inspired outfits. Her black and pink fringed look with side "cut-out's" was electric, sexy and looked like a Brazilian Carnival performer. I also liked that the touches of pink were brought back to his look. I'm also a sucker for a MPN: Male Plunging Neckline!

Shibutani and Shibutani of the USA: Another brother and sister team--this time Maia and Alex Shibutani--got the Gold (Yeayyy Maia and Alex!) with their fabulous performances, infectious energy and "We are just SO happy to be here" smiles! Here, I want to highlight their Free Skate Costumes, in which they skated to Glenn Miller Orchestra's "In The Mood" "Moonlight Serenade" and "Chattanooga Choo Choo". They looked soooo cute together, I just wanna be their Gay Uncle and take them shopping and buy them tons of clothes!

Both of their costumes reflected the Big Band theme of their music really well: Her bright red halter-style crystal encrusted dress was very sweet and age-appropriate and packed a little bit of a punch. Alex's sweater vest, pinstripe pants and white shirt and tie look was straight out of some 40's college prepster from an Ivy League school sneaking out of class to go dancin'.

Weaver and Poje of Canada: These two skated to Je Suis Malade by Lara Fabian. This is a passionate song (the title means "I Am Sick") in which a woman is love sick over her partner ("My life ceases when you leave" goes the song). You would think that besides their presentation and skating they could somehow convey something with their costumes. But no, not so much. I understand that it's a contemporary song which requires contemporary "costumes" but these two looked like they had left a club in Brooklyn at 2:30am and didn't have enough money to catch a cab home back to New Jersey! First of all, I am not a fan of the tucked-in shirt and belted look for guys. It's mainly the belt I have a problem with; it just looks as if he got that from his closet. And her dress: I couldn't understand why that one strap was loose and hanging like that. I guess it was supposed to hint as if he had "passionately" pulled it off of her. But it just looked like a costume mistake. All that being said, they are a GORGEOUS couple!

The Pairs:

The Top Three: (Left to right) Silver Medalists Takahashi and Tran of Japan, Kavaguti and Smirnov of Russia who got the Gold, and Savchenko and Szolkowy of Germany with their Bronze Medals. I talked about the Russians Kavaguti and Smirnov and their costumes here so I won't go into that, but I will discuss...

Savchenko and Szolkowy of Germany: The only reason I am discussing these two is because of the fact that they are one of the top Pairs competitors and because they got third place at NHK this past weekend. I thought their Short Program Costumed, performed to "Angels and Demons" by Hans Zimmer, were on par with some of their previous season's kooky get-ups (which I liked!). Robin is in a black very tight jumpsuit straight out of some "Blades of Glory" remake, and Aliona is the so-called "Angel" in a very sassy and sexy white number. If that's an Angel, huney, time to book my ticket to HEAVEN!

On the other hand, NOTHING excited me about their Free Skate costumes. They skated something called "Pina" from a German 3D Dance Film (yeah, you read right!) of the same name. Anyhow, their costumes were so boring and uninspired that I want to YELL at the ice to bring back those Pink Panther outfits, like YESTERDAY--or wear those white and black jumpsuits all over again!!!

Berton and Hotarek of Italy: Stefania Berton and Ondrej Hotarek just missed the podium and garnered 4th place in Sapporo Japan. I liked, but not loved, their "Adagio in G minor for Organ and Strings" Free Skate costumes, seen above. The color is vibrant and perfect to get anyone's attention--even in the nose-bleed sections. But the scattered crystals look a little "Happy Hands at Home with the Bedazzler" and that diamante trim is straight out of Jo-Ann's Fabrics. Italians need to do better when it comes to costumes. Take a look at Carolina Kostner for a clue!

Takahashi and Tran of Japan: These two--who got the Silver Medal--wore one of my favorite costumes during the Pairs Free Dance competition. They looked quite elegant and "Figure Skating Costume" classic while skating to "Concerto de Quebec". Normally I wouldn't think of ombre-dyed muted olive, taupe and beige-y brown as colors that would make an impact as a figure skating costume, but they actually worked here (surprisingly!). The fact that they added them as almost a "detail/trim" and used the bright white as the most predominant color--in addition to the pretty well-placed mini flower crystals, it added to a nice costume story with their performance.

I thought her scooped back with back strapped detail was also a nice addition, especially since she was so "covered up" in the front. And PS: Tran's costume wasn't so bad as well. It coordinated with hers perfectly and hey, compared to what BA-BA-Boring Robin Szalkowy of the German pair wore, this is FAB-u-LOUS!

*Up Next: The Ladies of NHK Trophy 2011--Princess Jasmine of Aladdin Meets a Yellow-and-crystals clad Finnish Queen...