‘Tea and Tutus’ special event … (Members and their guests)

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DATE:  Sunday 19 January 2025

TIME:  2.00 - 4.30pm 🇬🇧

VENUE :  Royal Ballet Upper School, 46 Floral St, London WC2E 9DA

INTERVIEWER : V&A Dance Curator Jane Pritchard 

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Our TEA AND TUTUS event will be in two parts.

The first part consists of a talk from two ballet costume makers, Meri Makipentti and Stephanie Woodage. They will bring finished and unfinished tutus, character costumes and tunics, jewellery and hairpieces, and discuss aspects of all these.

The talk will be hosted by Jane Pritchard who is the Curator of Dance at the V&A museum, and a world renowned dance historian and archivist.  Jane will give a short history of the tutu.

Following the talk, the LBC are delighted to invite attendees to enjoy a social with drinks and nibbles in the studio next door.  The social is supported by two gifts from members expressly for the enjoyment of the membership, from the estate of Rosemary Steet, and from an anonymous donation in memory of a former member.  We are very grateful to the members who have generously donated to us in this way. 

We do hope you will join us.

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Meri Makipentti started making tutus and ballet costumes about 15 years ago for the local ballet school where her daughter learnt to dance. As commissions for her costumes increased, she decided to set up her own business called My Tutu and, besides tutus, she now also design and make tunics, ballet and global dance costumes, ballet headdresses and jewellery. 

Mei explains ‘My background is in architecture and design, and for me, making ballet costumes feels like a natural extension to my original career as an architect.  I have taken a variety of tutu making classes both in London and the US, but I am mostly self-taught and my skills have been built up gradually over a period of time. I now work full time creating tutus and ballet costumes for competitions, galas and ballet shows, and my clients include vocational, pre-professional and professional dancers both in the UK and the US.’ 

Stephanie Woodage has been making tutus and dance costumes for nearly 22 years.  Her first tutu was for her daughter who was seven at the time, and she has been making them ever since!  She works for En Pointe Tutus and Dancewear specialising in variation tutus and costumes for major competitions such as YAGP, Performance Platform, The Fonteyn Competition as well as making for vocational, pre-professional and professional dancers across the UK and Europe.  The work extends into stretch fabrics producing stretch tutus for younger festival dancers and other stretch dancewear.  She has also occasionally made tiaras and hairpieces. 

Stephanie says ‘Having sewn for most of my life, it was the tutus that really captured my interest; I came from a computing background and enjoyed taking a logical approach to tutu construction and development.  When I started, there were no patterns or instructions available so was self-taught in tutu construction for the first few years. Since then, I have attended many courses and seminars which have expanded my skills and have connected with many other tutu makers across the world.  Along with Meri and another maker, we took over the running and teaching of a well-established tutu making course and many of our ex-students are now accomplished tutu makers.

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*** BOOKING NOW OPEN ***

Members may book for themselves and a named guest.  We expect a high level of interest in this event.