An Inside Look At Sharing the Barre's Design Process
Creating a new line of dancewear requires an extensive process of sketching, designing, and testing the product. We want to take you inside our process of creating our first line of dancewear.
Step 1: Inspiration & Vision
The first step in creating our line started with finding our inspiration and vision for creating this collection. Our style can be classified as versatile. We wanted to create leotards that could fit a wider range of dancers and give you the flexibility to manipulate your leotard to look good on you.
Step 2: Initial Sketches
The prototype designs you voted on were our initial sketches. These sketches are quick illustrations that allow the founder, Abigail Sakati, to show to her designer, Madison Migliacco, her vision. They are then discussed and tweaked to better fit our dancers.
Step 3: Technical Sketches
In this step, our designer creates a technical sketch that explains how she is going to create the garment. This is much like pinning your favorite dance outfits on Pinterest before you buy them to make sure they look great!
Step 4: Draping
Once the technical sketch is created, tweaked, and approved, our designer starts draping our prototype material. She manipulates a simple white spandex on a mannequin to see how the material will settle and form on the body. We use this white spandex as template to help us adjust fit, however we will be using different materials for our final prototypes.
Step 5: Sewing It Together
After the draping process is complete, our designer will sew the garment together, so that we have a real sense of how our leotards will function and look! The material you see is not our real material. We won't create our leotards with the real material until we are ready to test it.
Step 6: Fit Model
Next we will have a fit model try on our initial prototype to see if we need to make an other adjustments to ensure the fit is just right. Abigail's sisters and a few of their dance friends were kind enough to try them on and provide feedback.
Step 7: Grading & Tech Packs
Once our initial prototype has been fixed and we are happy with the fit, our designer will send the final patterns to be graded and create the tech packs.
Grading is the process of taking your final patterns and creating a new pattern for each size. We will send our materials to a company in NYC for grading, where they will be creating all of our sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL).
After grading is completed, the tech pack is a completed. This is simply a blueprint for the seamstress, that tells them how cut the fabric, sew it together, and what materials they will need. Similar to a recipe you use to cook your favorite meal.
Fun Fact: We don't believe your size defines you, so the size of your garment will not be printed on your leotard. Instead there will be a removable sticker on the garment tag on the inside of your leotard that you can dispose of. We do this to ensure quality control, but after that your leotard is your own!
Step 9: Testing!
Once all the above steps are complete, we get to test our final prototypes! Our final prototypes will test our fabric selection for proper breathability and if it can sustain being sweat in, rolled in on the floor, and washed several times. Sharing the Barre wants to provide our customers with a premium quality product, so we will make sure that our fabric and designs gets flying colors on all the tests we conduct for quality.
Step 10: Launching Our Product
Once our product has passed all our tests, we will launch to the masses! You will then be able to purchase Sharing the Barre's initial line of leotards. Once our leotard arrives at your door, you will start shining at class, at an audition, at rehearsal, or just strutting around your house!