With its sequinned costumes, spray tans, top hats and sparkly shoes, the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing is renowned and loved for its dramatic makeovers and fairly tale costumes.
Now, the Strictly contestant Jeremy Vine has revealed just what the process of ‘Strictlification’, as it is apparently named behind the scenes, involves.
Writing on his official website http://jeremyvine.tv, the BBC Radio 2 presenter reveals that when he arrived for his first fitting, he apologised for his shirt with oil stain, grey hair and poorly fitting jeans, only to be told by the stylist: “Don’t worry Jeremy. We will soon Strictlify you.”
He continues: ‘After a lot of measuring, and a bit of make-up, and a beautifully-tailored outfit that clung to my ribcage like a glove…. I gasped. Gone is the oil stain. Gone the slipshod jeans and embarrassing trainers. I don’t even look as grey as I feared I was. Look at the cufflink! The white bow tie! I have been Strictlified!’
However, the costume is not, according to Vine, without its problems. He writes “Just how complicated these outfits are! I can’t believe that, to dance in the 1920s, you had to wear an outfit that stopped you moving.”
Judge Len Goodman gave some words of encouragement when Jeremy bumped into him in a corridor. Jeremy told him “Wow. This costume is so complicated I can’t even go to the loo.”
He replied, “Look, my first competition, I was so nervous I got dressed at home and drove there in the tails. My collar was so tight I couldn’t look left and right at the [traffic] lights!”’
In the post on his website, Vine shares a series of images of him getting into his costume, a process that involves a shirt that doubles up as pants and includes his cummerband being stitched on.
You can see more of the images at http://jeremyvine.tv/top-hat-
