Punk- inspired costumes to be featured on ABC's hit show
Amanda Wolff had just two frenetic days to research, sketch and submit her costume designs to the Dancing with the Stars judges.
Swamped with work as an apprentice at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre, prepping costumes for The King and I, she thought there was no way she could make it work.
But fortunately, Wolff listened to her mother, an avid Dancing with the Stars fan who nudged her daughter to do double duty.
“My mom said, ‘What do you have to lose?’ ” recalls Wolff, 22, of Dresher, Pennsylvania , a suburb of Philadelphia. “I’m glad I did.”
In early November, Wolff learned that her designs had won and would appear on the November 15 episode of Dancing with the Stars. A pair of dancers will wear the punk-inspired costumes as they perform the Paso Doble to Lady Gaga’s hit song “Bad Romance.” Wolff is headed to Los Angeles for the taping4– and she’s bringing along her mom for the adventure.
Wolff says she designed the looks with the understanding that Dancing with the Stars “is definitely a family show, so I knew the costume couldn’t be too crazy, too out there, too scandalous, something the public wouldn’t understand.”
Wolff says she isn’t certain if she will appear on the show or if she will just observe the taping. Either way she’s thrilled.
“It’s very exciting and very overwhelming,” says Wolff, who has been caught up in a minor media storm since learning of the win.
Wolff says her mom taught her to sew when she was just 6 or 7. Wolff often made her own clothes – “awful dresses,” as she calls them–and studied painting and sculpture throughout high school. The costume-design program at the Mason Gross School “connected that love of arts and sewing,” she says. “My mom taught me the basics. Rutgers taught me the technical skill.”
Wolff says the Theater program also furthered her goal of not “sitting behind a computer all day. That’s not for me . . . They taught me not to be afraid, not to hold back.”
Wolff hasn’t done much time behind a computer. While in the BFA Theater program, she interned at the CBS drama The Good Wife alongside Mason Gross Theater alum Dan Lawson, the show’s costume designer. She says she is game to work behind the scenes of live shows or for television.
“I am open to anything,” Wolff says. “I want to see where this [win] takes me. As long as I’m doing some aspect of costume design, I’m happy.”
Right now, she is definitely happy – and stunned.
“I was watching Dancing with the Stars this week and thinking, ‘Next week [the costumes] will be mine,’” Wolff says. “I can’t believe this happened.”