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Original poster

Cost of ballet uniform

54 replies

Balletbore · 31/12/2017 08:03

DD has just started ballet. She is 10, but has been doing other types of dance and is loving it. Her ballet school is great. However I am finding the cost of the RAD uniform for exams a real shock. She has just completed grade 2,so apparently this means a whole new uniform for grade 3. The character skirts if bought through the dance school are £35! And although am scouring ebay, it is difficult to find the ribbon colours required and specified by the dance school. Her leotard is v specific as well in terms of colour and doesn't often come up on eBay either. The problem is I encouraged her to do ballet as I did it for 10 years) mixture of RAD and ISTD exams which only required a black leotard, tights, shoes and a skirt loaned by the school so was reasonably cheap for my single mother to afford. Is it the RAD or the dance school which is specifying the uniform? Sorry of this is a bit naive, genuinely a bit surprised.

OP posts:
ilovesushi · 31/12/2017 11:01

Can you get anything secondhand from other dance mums? There is a notice board up at my kids' dance school selling on uniform. I agree about the sky high costs of some of the items. The character skirts are crazy! I tend to shop around online to save a few quid as the school marks things up. Having said that they don't insist on you buying a whole new uniform as soon as the kids move up a grade. You just get a new one once they've outgrown the old. Hope you can sort it out. It would be a shame for her to give up because of the uniform costs!

Newyearnewlifehelp · 31/12/2017 08:58

This is why mine had to stop ballet...

Original poster
Balletbore · 31/12/2017 08:56

Thank you endofacentury That's awful. It reminded me that similarly DD had to have new ballet shoes for her exam (satin!) again will be worn once. It is interesting that BBO is similarly exacting (I. E not just a RAD thing).

OP posts:
endofacentury · 31/12/2017 08:44

My Dd did ballet for 10 years, her exams were with BBO and it is the exam board that sets the uniform. We had to buy a brand new leotard and tights for the exam, even though they had to wear it for lessons all year, they had to wear a new one for the exam and then it was only worn for an hour and then they moved up to the next grade and required a new uniform! Absolute waste of money and as a lone parent I found it very expensive.