Top Tips on Choosing the Best Leotards for Your Dance Lessons
Once you enroll in ballet classes, you will need to buy the proper dancewear. One of the most important pieces is definitely the leotard. It is a special piece that is skintight and designed to cover your torso while leaving your arms and legs exposed. Thanks to its lightness and form-fitting qualities, a leotard makes ballet dancing look effortless.
However, when it comes to choosing your perfect piece you may find it a bit confusing due to the wide range of leotards available on the market. If you are someone who has just started with ballet dances classes, it is important to choose a piece that will make you feel comfortable and help you perform your best. Here’s a bit of help on the matter.
Style
After visiting a dancewear store, you will notice that leotards come in a few different designs.
- The camisole has skinny shoulder straps that allow for intricate designs like double-strap, lattice back and criss-cross back;
- Frilled or skirted leotards have a frill or a skirt attached to the waist;
- Short-sleeved leotards come in few different variations including open back and polo neck;
- The long-sleeved leotard is the perfect choice for dancers who want to cover their arms;
- Tank leotards are the most commonly used models, mainly due to their simplicity and timeless appeal.
Material
Cotton lycra and nylon lycra are the most common materials used for making leotards. Lycra leotards usually come in colours like black and pink but you can also find some other colours and materials. Nylon lycra has a bit of shine while cotton lycra has a matte finish – both of them are available in a range of colours. Apart from these two materials, other common fabrics are metallic which have a reflective aspect crating a glittery and sparkly impression and printed fabrics that can be found in many different patterns – from tiger and zebra prints to harlequin and rainbow prints.
Size
Leotards are very comfortable pieces to wear but it is still important to buy the right size for you so that you feel good while dancing. The best thing to do is to try the leotard before you buy it. Walk around with it a little bit and make sure that you bend forward and backward to see whether it moves too much. If it pulls between your legs or under your arms while you are moving, look for a bigger size as this one is probably small for you. Dancing while dressed in something that is too tight or too loose is a really bad idea, so pay close attention to this detail.