Meet Sasha's dressmaker

Sasha's "Romeo and Juliet" dress is Longmire's favorite.	The dress was remade in a dark red for the Olympics.

Jan Longmire is the architect

Sasha is known for her elegant skating and also for those gorgeous dresses she wears on the ice.

Those dresses are a collaborative effort between Sasha and noted costume-maker Jan Longmire of California. They all begin with sketches Sasha takes to Longmire. Then the discussions begin between the artist and the architect. There is give and take on both sides, and when all is said and done, Sasha is a vision on the ice and Longmire is one proud lady.

“I’m so lucky to have Jan Longmire as my dressmaker,” Sasha said. “She is so good and great to work with.”

Sasha started working with Longmire three years ago, right after her move back to California from Connecticut.

“We have known each other forever,” Longmire said, “because my daughter skated also and (John) Nicks was her coach. Sasha’s mom and I had been sitting together at the rink for a long time, watching our daughters grow up, but I had never worked with her on costumes.”

When Sasha came back to California, she didn’t have any dresses that she liked, so she turned to Longmire for help. They collaborated on the “Dark Eyes” dress, which helped give Sasha that “attitude” on the ice when she wore it. They also worked on the dress Sasha wore in her long program, “The Nutcracker”.

“It worked out,” Longmire said, “but I didn’t have Christmas that year!”

With some skaters, they rely on the designer and costume-maker to hand them the dresses, ready to go. But not Sasha.

“Sasha does a lot of research. She’s fond of certain New York designers, but then I have to remind her that those dresses are made to be seen in candlelight across a table, but her dresses have to be seen from a great distance.”

“When she walks in, she has a pretty strong idea what she wants. She has a sketch and it’s up to me to translate her sketch into an architect’s sketch and then execute it," Longmire said.

"We sit down and she tries to sell me on the sketch. Then we go into this little dance, where we get all technical. we circle around and around until we come up with something we can agree on. She stays very involved until the dress is ready.”

Sasha is also knowledgeable about how the costume comes together, so if she has to make repairs in a hotel, she can.

“Sasha has a lot of curiosity. She understands how the dress is put together. If she has a problem, she can fix it,” Longmire said.

Longmire also makes costumes where all parts are moveable, parts that can be interchanged or removed. “Sasha’s one who might say, ‘let’s get rid of this part,’ and it has to go. It’s also fun because you can have straps one day and not the next, or sleeves one day and not the next.”

Longmire said Sasha is very intense on the subject of how she looks. “I appreciate that intensity. With her, everything matters.”

It takes about three weeks to finish a dress for Sasha, with several fittings during that period.

One of the most recent dresses Longmire worked on was the lavender CSI: NY dress.

“Sasha was told by the wardrobe department at CSI that the dress had to be lavender. It also had to be a flowing dress. We added the material on the arms that floated around when she skated. The dress was beautiful, very romantic. You probably could not tell from seeing it on TV, but the dress had a beaded design that looked like a tear drop, that went down to the skirt.”

She also collaborated with Sasha for her “West Side Story” dress she wore for the Marshalls Challenge.

Her favorite dress was Sasha’s first “Romeo and Juliet” dress. It is a creamy ivory with beading. It is the dress she wore at the 2006 U.S. National Championships where she won the gold medal.

For the Olympics, Sasha decided that the cream color did not show up well on the ice, so Longmire made an identical dress in dark red with cap sleeves.

“My biggest thrill came when Peggy Fleming was in the costume closet of the skaters, and she was giving medals out for costumes. She gave bronze, then silver, and then pulled out Sasha’s dress and gave it the gold medal.”

“Sasha is so beautiful to watch, and she moves so beautifully,” Longmire said. “I have never seen any of my costumes on her that didn’t look gorgeous.”

One of the most interesting things about designing and making Sasha’s dresses is that Longmire starts all of the dresses with white fabric. “Everything I buy is white,” she said, “and then I dye it all, or airbrush the fabric to get the color I want.”

When making a costume, Longmire has to remind the skater that she is literally working with a rubber suit. “The foundation fabric for all the dresses is latex and spandex,” she said. “It has to be that way so the skater can move. Everything else is an illusion. The costume has to stay put when the skater moves. It’s built for war but has to have a magical look.”

Longmire also designs for other skaters and ballet dancers. “I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather do,” she said."

Longmire, who has a studio in Huntington Beach, Calif., says, in the end, “it’s all magic.”

You can see Longmire’s “magic” at www.janlongmire.com.