The Art of Figure Skating Costume Collection
Toller International has recently acquired a highly valuable collection of costumes from Toller’s most iconic shows including Strawberry Ice and Magic Planet. Most were designed by legendary costume designer Frances Dafoe, CM, OLY. These extraordinarily beautiful one-of-a-kind works of art will be featured in a major exhibition coming later this year. Watch for details.
Frances Dafoe, CM, OLY
Throughout the 1950s, Frances Dafoe CM and partner Norris Bowden were the nation’s finest pairs figure skaters—winners of four Canadian titles, two World Figure Skating Championships and a silver medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics. They combined incredible athletic ability with unique artistry and were true pioneers in their sport. Dafoe and Bowden brought figure skating to a new level of sophistication with their imaginative new lifts and jumps.
Frannie Dafoe remained involved in figure skating as a judge, team leader, and costume designer. She had studied at the Parsons School of Design, and worked as a costume designer with the CBC for 40 years. She received three Gemini Award nominations for her work in — Back to the Beanstalk, The Trial of Red Riding Hood and I’ll Never Get to Heaven. She designed 650 performers’ costumes for the closing ceremonies at the 1988 Winter Olympics. She designed magical costumes for Toller Cranston’s ice shows including Strawberry Ice and Magic Planet. She was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1991 in recognition of her contributions as one of Canada’s first world pair champions, as an international judge, and as a fashion designer.
The Book
The grace, speed, and beauty of ice skating has inspired painters and sculptors, graphic artists and photographers, filmmakers and choreographers of spectacles, and the designers of skates and costumes, medals, programs and posters, advertising dolls, and decorative objects. This beautiful book by Frances Dafoe and Dick Button looks at how figure skating has evolved through its 800+year history, including its art, medals, figurines, skaters’ costumes, and other memorabilia.
Costumes and Finishing Touches – Ink on Blades – Episode 5
Facebook Video
This flame costume was designed by Frances Dafoe when Calgary hosted the 1988 Olympics. She designed all 650 costumes used in the closing. Click to View
Six String Nation Project
Toller costume now part of Six String Nation, a public art and history project conceived by Jowi Taylor and centred around a steel-string acoustic guitar built from a variety of artifacts collected by Taylor representing diverse cultures, communities, characters and events from every province and territory of Canada. Over a period of eleven years, Taylor researched and gathered contributed materials for the guitar from every province and territory in Canada.
The Six String Nation guitar made its debut on Canada Day 2006 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa at the invitation of the National Capital Commission. Over the years it has been played by hundreds of musicians including Feist, Bruce Cockburn, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Gordon Lightfoot, Rob Baker, Catherine MacLellan, the African Guitar Summit, K’naan, and many others at public and private events across Canada.
