Our Top Ten Tutus

The Fairy of Temperament

The Fairy of Temperament in The Sleeping Beauty is also known as Violente (Force) or the Fairy of the Golden Vine. Temperament's spirited dance is often known as the 'finger variation' because she points with her index fingers. For David McAllister's Beauty, designer Gabriela Tylesova picked up on the Golden Vine name. Tylesova refers to her fondly as "the wine fairy". She is given a bunch of golden leaves and grapes to match her headdress, and corkscrew curls on the tutu's skirt mimic the young shoots of a grape vine. They also seem to make visible her crackling energy.

Meet the rest of The Sleeping Beauty's Fairies (and their marvellous tutus).

Ballet Imperial

George Balanchine's tribute to his Russian imperial past calls for a splendour to match the days of Petipa and Tchaikovsky. Designer Hugh Colman responded with rich blues and golds: the tutu as Fabergé egg. These Ballet Imperial costumes would be right at home in St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre.

The Black Swan

Odile, the Black Swan in Swan Lake, is both seductive and spiky: her steps are the hard and brilliant mirror image of Odette's melting adages. For Anne Woolliams' Swan Lake, Tom Lingwood dressed her in black cut with glittering dagger-like silver shapes; touches of infernal red gleam on her bodice.

The Firebird

Graeme Murphy's Firebird takes the Michel Fokine ballet, itself taken from a Russian folktale, and makes it rich and strange. His Firebird is a wholly otherworldly creature, but distinctively avian, wreathed by designer Leon Krasenstein in red and wearing fluttering feather gloves.

The Mirlitons

Nothing says Christmas like Peter Wright's traditional version of The Nutcracker, and nothing embodies the festive spirit of John F Macfarlane's Edwardian-inspired design like the Mirlitons, their tutus striped like candy canes and adorned like gifts.

Princess Florine

The Sleeping Beauty's Princess Florine is the female half of the famous Bluebird Pas de deux. Gabriela Tylesova's design for David McAllister's The Sleeping Beauty is an exquisite cerulean blue to match her partner's plumage.

The Sugar Plum Fairy

The crowning moment of The Nutcracker is the Sugar Plum Fairy's variation. John F Macfarlane's tutu for Peter Wright's Nutcracker is a shimmering confection of Swarovski crystals, velvet and sparkle nets.

Odette

Hugh Colman's tutu for the Swan Queen Odette in for Stephen Baynes' Swan Lake is not white but subtly ice blue, making it appear as if it's bathed in moonlight, and features wing shapes across the skirts and a single teardrop pearl on the chest.

Clara

Another tribute to the Imperial Theatres. In Graeme Murphy's reimagined Nutcracker, Clara is a prima ballerina, and the highlight of her career is dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy before the Tsar. This spectacular creation of burnished golds and ambers, by Kristian Fredrikson, is her costume for that performance.

Kitri

The dashing heroine of Rudolf Nureyev's Don Quixote spends most of the ballet swishing her gypsy flounces, but on her wedding day transforms into a regal ballerina in this magnificent apricot-and-white tutu by Barry Kay.