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Dance off misery: Chris Robshaw and his dance partner, Nadiya Bychkova (right, in red) were among the first to get eliminated from this year\u2019s Strictly Come Dancing series. But their costumes, and those of many of their rivals, were made in Croydon<\/p>\n
Whoever receives the glitterball at the end of the BBC\u2019s pro-celebrity Strictly Come Dancing tonight, they will probably be wearing costumes where every stitch of chiffon, every sequin, has been designed and sewn on by craftspeople at a Croydon-based costume company whose co-founder was at the heart of televised ballroom competitions.<\/p>\n
Anyone old enough to recall Strictly\u2019s predecessor programme, Come Dancing and presenters who included Judith Chalmers, Terry Wogan or Angela Rippon, will probably also remember one of the \u201cadjudicators\u201d of that ballroom competition: Len Goodman, who was to become a mainstay \u201cPickle my walnuts!\u201d judge in the early series of Strictly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another regular to tread the boards on the show at The Lyceum was Peggy Spencer.<\/p>\n
Spencer was the doyenne of women\u2019s ballroom from the 1940s to the 1980s, a champion dancer and expert choreographer who famously was invited to have her sarf London formation ballroom dancing team perform for the Queen at Buck House. Twice.<\/p>\n
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Radio old times: there\u2019s been some form of ballroom competition show on the BBC for 75 years<\/p>\n
Spencer died in 2016, aged 95, after a lifetime devoted to dance. She was foremost known as a teacher, giving lessons at her studio in Penge, but she also had an entrepreneurial streak which saw her branch out into the design and manufacture of famously glitzy ballroom costumes, for men as well as women, through a company she helped form called DanceSport International.<\/p>\n
And it is DSI, based on an industrial estate off the Purley Way, which over recent series has provided to order, usually on a very tight turnround, so many of the bespoke, hand-made costumes worn by the celebrities under the TV spotlights.<\/p>\n
So while the Croydon and Sutton sports stars who started out on this latest series of Strictly, Chris Robshaw, the former England rugby captain, and Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, the Olympic sprinter turned Gladiator, <\/a>didn\u2019t last the course to the finish, it is highly likely that costumes worn by the three finallists will have been stitched together in the past fortnight in a workshop on Progress Way.<\/p>\n Doyenne: Peggy Spencer and her husband, Frank in their trophy-winning days<\/p>\n DSI London was founded in 1982, by Spencer and Geoffrey Hearn, with half an eye on getting ballroom into the Olympics, and after adding a dress-making department in 2000, they have become the go-to place for West End theatre costume directors and, of course, the producers at Strictly.<\/p>\n As well as dressing the celebs and their professional partners on the telly, DSI London\u2019s 52 skilled dressmakers have also provided the wardrobes for stage musicals and movies including Wicked and Hamilton.<\/p>\n The demands of making body-hugging costumes for performance are \u201ccompletely different\u201d compared to regular fashion, according to DSI\u2019s sales director Gerald Schwanzer.<\/p>\n Made in Croydon: some of the fancy frocks used by dancers on Strictly, made by hand at DSI London<\/p>\n Many of the costumes are closer in design and materials to the kind of thing which might be worn by competitors in demanding sports such as gymnastics.<\/p>\n \u201cPerformers want to move, and we want to accentuate the movement,\u201d Schwanzer told the BBC in a recent interview.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the right expertise and machinery to make movement come alive and make it very exciting to watch. You need real experts to do something great.\u201d<\/p>\n PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com<\/a> for our unbeatable ad rates<\/p>\n If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents\u2019 association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com<\/a><\/p>\n Like this:<\/p>\n Like Loading…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Peggy-and-Frank-Spencer-dancing.jpg\")
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