It’s all about “confi-dance”

Back in February, I wrote about the upcoming Kiss Me Deadly catwalk show. I was very much looking forward to seeing the wonderfully diverse selection of superfans that the brand had chosen to show off their current and future lingerie and swimwear styles, and planned to attend with two lovely friends. It turned out that an awful lot more people I know were there too, and the evening didn’t disappoint any of us! From the opening where the 9 non-models strutted their stuff, through the sea of beautiful performances coordinated by Tempest Rose from House of Burlesque, to the rapturous applause at the end, there was one thing which set this apart from any other catwalk show I’ve been to: sheer joy.

Those appearing on the Kiss Me Deadly catwalk were notably diverse, which is something the brand set out to do from the start, but to me it was their happiness and confidence that made the show something special to watch. The audience would have expected the burlesque performers who followed to have oodles of confidence, but the sass from these guys really blew us all away. It wasn’t just pure enthusiasm that carried them through though, as Amanda from Irreverent Dance was brought in to prepare these superfans for the catwalk:

Pleasingly the 9 catwalkers varied in size, age, gender, race, ability, sexuality, confidence and personality. After spending a little time with each of them, looking at their movement profile – where they naturally carried their centre of gravity, how they walked, where they held their arms etc – and getting to know them as people I was ready to give each of them a piece of custom choreography that took into account all this, their costume, amazing accessories, footwear AND confidence level!

It was a long day, and the performers spent much of it being shuffled between a stellar team of make-up artists, jewellers, hairdressers, photographers, press contacts, and me of course, barely giving them time to eat or collect themselves! My gosh were they up for it though, they stayed attentive and worked really hard to pull together an amazing catwalk in such a short time. When they stepped out onto that stage, every single one of them found a persona with a distinct style, smile and a boatload (or should that be ‘buttload’?) of sass and I’d be very proud to say I had even the smallest influence on what was produced.

When I commented on this post on the Irreverent Dance site, I made an accidental but rather appropriate typo – I said that Amanda had given the Deadlies confidance. It may have been a silly spelling mistake, but that is exactly what Irreverent Dance does. It gives those who are willing, but not yet able, the self assurance to stand up in front of cheering supporters and say “look what I can do!” Tomorrow, I shall be doing just that as I show off my newly honed pointe skills in the Improvers Pointe Open Class.

As for the Kiss Me Deadly fans who wowed us all up on that stage, I hope they keep this new found confidence and manage to put it to good use. I’m pretty sure a lot of people in the audience will have felt inspired by watching them strut their stuff, and I hope they felt every inch as glamorous as the burlesque performers who followed. They most certainly looked it.

Images via the Kiss Me Deadly Facebook page.