Throughout Capezio’s 140-year history, founder Salvatore Capezio’s craftsmanship has been woven into the fabric of American dance studios and stages. Yet it wasn’t until this year that the leading dancewear brand announced its first partnership with a modern-dance company to create a new line of dance apparel.
In honor of the Martha Graham Dance Company’s (MGDC) centennial milestone, Capezio has designed a capsule collection inspired by iconic Graham costumes. Priced from $50 to $250, the premium items will include three skirts, two unitards, three biketards, one mesh long-sleeve top, and a sweater and legwarmers.
Set to launch this October in the NYC Capezio flagship store—where an archival photo of Martha Graham graces the wall—and on capezio.com, select products from the collection will also be available at special MGDC events. Due to limited distribution, the items will not be available for wholesale, but broader opportunities are being discussed.
The Capezio and Graham Connection
In her autobiography, Blood Memory, Graham describes her reverence for the human form, writing “The body is a sacred garment.” As a choreographer, she designed many of her iconic costumes, seeing costumes as inseparable from the dancer, movements, set, and music. She famously collaborated with fashion designers Halston, Donna Karan, and Calvin Klein, and her relationship with Capezio also has deep roots: In 1960, Graham received the Capezio Dance Award for her pioneering contributions to American dance. This year, at the 100th-anniverary gala on April 17, her company received the award.
The idea for a collaboration between the organizations began brewing last summer after Graham dancer Lloyd Knight attended a Capezio photo shoot, inspiring Jacob Larsen, former Graham dancer and current MGDC partnerships associate, to pitch the dancewear collaboration. The partnership developed quickly: While the Capezio design team watched dancers in class at the Martha Graham school, and dug through Graham archives and the NYC Dance Project’s Martha Graham Dance Company 100 Years photography book, MGDC artistic director Janet Eilber, Knight, and the company dancers provided wish lists and needs for dancewear.
“The Capezio team was so inspired to translate this incredible legacy into something really wearable for dancers, not just in rehearsal but studio to streetwear, the way dancers live today,” says Kimberlee Garris, Capezio vice president of brand and community.
Design Details
When the design team went to the Graham Company with early design sketches, Knight was blown away. “They were hungry to hear what the dancers thought not just of the designs,” he says, “but how they function for dancers today.” The team was inspired by Graham’s philosophies on costume designs that emphasized contraction and release, foundational elements of Graham technique. “Martha saw the torso as the motor of all physicality, so the bodice was always tight-fitting and the skirts often started below the hips to show the top of the pelvis,” describes Eilber.
For the collection, Capezio’s designers homed in on the striking red-and-black Graham palette. They also developed skin-tone unitards in a variety of shades to highlight the diversity of the company. A lightweight, ankle-length mesh skirt also comes in a “cameo rose” colorway, and is designed to be worn over the neutral unitards. The collection also includes a skirt based on the company’s black, full-length rehearsal skirts, retailing for $105. A red-and-black ombre skirt is directly inspired by the soloist’s all-consuming skirt in “Spectre-1914,” the opening section of Graham’s 1936 work Chronicle, which Eilber says Graham designed to “represent the images of war.”
Though designed with professional dancers in the studio in mind, Eilber says the pieces are equally suited to performance. “The Capezio team made this collection so theatrically designed, inspired by Martha’s idea that the design of fabric expresses emotion; they are a perfect crossover to the stage.” Both organizations are excited for the possibility of more collaborations down the line, as one capsule can’t convey the scope of Graham’s design inspirations. “As a dancer, I grew up wearing Capezio, so I’m very honored to be representing both Graham and Capezio in this way,” says Knight.
Jen Peters is a frequent contributor to Dance Magazine and Dance Teacher. She lives in Ann Arbor, MI, where she is on faculty at University of Michigan’s Department of Dance, instructs Pilates and Gyrotonic at MOVE Wellness, and teaches ballet and conditioning for Michigan Ice Dance Academy.