Dancing costume queen

IT doesn’t seem that long ago, says Strictly Come Dancing costume designer Vicky Gill, that she was sitting at her mother’s knee in their County Durham home making dresses for her peg dolls.

Today, Vicky designs all 400 of the stunning, jewel-encrusted creations worn by the stars of the BBC celebrity dance competition in each series.

Her stiff net, stretch mesh, satin, lace and lycra gowns have become as much a part of the star-studded performances as double lifts and box steps.

There were gasps from the studio audience when Rachel Stevens appeared in a spectacular delicately beaded, pink champagne couture lace dress for her Viennese Waltz.

And again, when Holly Valance, dramatic in black for Swan Lake, raised her arm to reveal an elegant float of material, covered in hundreds of fine ostrich feathers, which had been individually rolled and applied by hand.

Some of her most dazzling dresses, which can take up to five days to make, are embellished with as many as 150,000 crystals each, and every individual sparkle has to be carefully attached by hand. There is only one word for Vicky’s frocks. As Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood would say, they are Fab-u-lous.

But Vicky, whose father was a butcher and bus driver and mother a machinist, is incredibly modest about her achievements.

As well as designing for Strictly, Vicky has created some of the best known stage costumes for stars such as Britney, Girls Aloud and Kylie, including Kylie’s stunning cream Grecian high split silk crepe dress for her 2011 Aphrodite tour.

Although it’s something she plays down. She declined Kylie’s invite to her Aphrodite album launch party in Ibiza: “Once the frock’s made and they’re happy with it, that’s me. They don’t want me hanging around,” says Vicky matterof- factly.

And while her fabulous Strictly frocks take centre stage on our TV screens, admired by more than 12 million viewers every week in Britain alone, as well as on spin-off Strictly series all over the world, Vicky prefers to stay very much in the background.

Most of her family and friends back in Stanley, including mum Emily, dad Allan and brothers John and Barry Barkess, are big fans of the competition. The show’s popularity never ceases to amaze her. “Even within my family, people I wouldn’t have expected to be that interested just love it.”

But its success isn’t likely to go to her head: “I’m just a girl from Stanley, County Durham who makes spangly frocks,” she says.

Her own personal style is far less flamboyant.

I like simple shapes, designers like Paul Smith. I might wear a little A-line dress with tights and then pop some shoes on, something with a bit of an edge. But it has to be something that’s quick to put together, and comfortable enough to work in.”

She doesn’t mind confessing that, while she talks to me on the phone from her Surrey home, with her children running around in the background, she is dressed in a rather unflattering spotty dressing gown with her hair in a top knot.

For Vicky and husband Mark, a selfemployed graphic designer she met while studying fashion at New- castle College, the demands of their work and three young children – Oliver, nine, Isobel, three and Evelyn, five months – adds up to a particularly hectic lifestyle.

She has just half an hour to talk before she has to get ready for a mad dash to the airport.

With the live shows for this series starting on October 5, Vicky is designing for, among others, Olympic gold medal winners Victoria Pendleton and Louis Smith and model and actress Jerry Hall.

“I am learning about them,” she says. “Victoria has the most amazing body, zero per cent fat. We are all I awe of her physique,” she says. “And Jerry just has it, she oozes glamour.”

She promises there will be a few surprises this series.

“There will be some little twists. We might reveal a bit of Louis, our gymnast’s, body, maybe people should see what all that hard work developed.”

During the busiest times at Strictly, Victoria leaves home at 7.30am and doesn’t get back until 12.30am. She often gets home for her children’s bath and teatime, only to return to work to finish off costumes later in the evening.

At work, Vicky is supported by a backroom team of 30, including machinists, pattern cutters, dressers and her assistant, Nicola Atkinson, from Whitby: “Another Northern girl.”

It takes about 1,000m of material, with fabrics from all over the world, to create the ballroom and Latin American dresses for the women alone.

Vicky, who has been working on the show for nine years and took over as chief costume designer two years ago, is used to the pressure. Although she does do as much preparation as she can, she doesn’t know who is going to be on the show from one week to the next. Also, performers’ body shapes change as the show progresses.

“Sometimes my designs are more of a scribble, an instinct. It can all be very last minute. But we have to get it right, because it does affect the performance, and the dress mustn’t restrict the dancer in any way.”

HER interest in costume design grew from her own love of performing: “Dance was my passion. From when I was a little girl,” she says. “I did freestyle, jazz, ballet and tap.”

A pupil at Stanley Comprehensive, she describes herself as a shy, quiet schoolgirl: “I didn’t feel comfortable throwing myself to the front at auditions.

That is why I didn’t take it up as a profession.”

She also enjoyed sewing with her mother: “She used to make me wonderful clothes. We would go and buy fabric on the Friday and by the Saturday I had a new frock.”

Vicky went on to make costumes for friends who performed, which led her to studying fashion and design at Newcastle and later Epsom School of Art and Design. Work experience with red-carpet dress designer Jenny Packham led to a job in high street menswear design before she found her niche in dance wear.

After building up her own business, Vicky went into partnership with London-based Dance Sport International to create the dazzling costumes for Strictly – her dream job.

As the first live showapproaches, Vicky is busy watching director’s tapes of the celebrity competitors: “I am watching them closely, looking at how they are moving. Normally the individual, their personality and body shape, inspires the garment.

“The celebrity’s perspective is important. They are wearing body conscious outfits – the dresses have to be fitted, they can’t be loose – and it is important they feel confident in front of 12m viewers.”

The choreography and music also has to be taken into account and Vicky likes to create designs, particularly for the Latin dances, which are current: “We try to be fashion forward and create edgy pieces that people at home will look at and go, ‘I want to wear that dress.”

The costumes are sold for up to £3,000 each to celebrities, viewers or dance world competitors after the series.

Vicky finds it difficult to pick a favourite, although the gown Kara Tointon wore in her final stands out: “It was a simple shape, a seamless, fitted nude tulle base covered in beautiful peach and pink crystals.”

She is briefly interrupted by three-year-old Isobel, who is making her laugh. But, just before she rushes off to get ready to catch her plane, she takes a moment to talk about her love for the North-East.

“I love to go home but don’t get back often enough. With three children, life is so busy.”

She and Mark, who recently completed the Great North Run, both have an affinity with the region: “We just love the North-East. We were all in Newcastle to cheer Mark on, for the second year. He was very proud of his 1hr 47min this time.

When she returns, she enjoys meeting up with people: “I’ll always be a North-East girl. I just like to have a natter and a cup of tea. I like to think I am still as I was when I left Stanley at 18-years-old.”

• Strictly Come Dancing starts on Friday, on BBC1, at 9pm