1410
8 min 35 sec

Dancer Steps Up With Blinged Out Costumes

When a freelance dancer decides to hang up her boots for a calmer life, she waltzes right into a costume making hobby that turns profitable.
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What It's About

A dancer gives old costumes a new spotlight.

Words of Wisdom

Charlotte has some great advice about discovering your own hustle. “Find something that you can offer that is personal to you. Don’t try to copy others, people will recognize it as their work. You want something that is yours. My experience as a performer meant that I can embellish pieces for performers, knowing what the demands of that costume would be and avoiding all the small mistakes that I made years ago.”

Fun Fact

The cabaret dance style was invented during the 1880s in France. Beyond being just a dance show, the original art form used to poke fun at the glamorous part of society.

Notes from Chris

Episode 1410

For over thirteen years, Charlotte Pacelli danced professionally in the London Cabaret and at corporate events. She loved to dance, but the combination of a job, as well as freelancing in the same field, grew tiring.

So, after thirteen years in dance, and five running her own troupe, Charlotte decided to hang up her boots and relegate dancing to more of a hobby. The problem was, she was a high achiever, and couldn’t sit still for long. Her mind was always dancing around! She took a job in mental health at another school and looked for something else to keep her creative muscle flexed.

Throughout her years running a troupe, she’d become well versed at upgrading and repairing costumes. With more downtime, she decided to begin making some of her own, purely for fun and to keep herself busy.

She knew she wanted to make something that shined, so she went to the High Street stores in London’s famous shopping district, and looked for lingerie on sale. They didn’t need to be perfect, as she was going to modify them anyway. With a few pieces to add some pizazz to, she set to sewing.

Charlotte adorned the lingerie with crystals, fringing, and beaded trim. She refers to it as embellishing the costume, enhancing it so it looks at home in a cabaret show. The results were exactly what she envisioned, and she wanted to make more.

Charlotte set up an Instagram account called Primp My Costume and posted her first few creations. She’d developed a lot of good connections during her dance career, so she reached out to them now, mentioned the new account and that the pieces were for sale. Those pieces waltzed right out the door!

Over the next year, she worked on this in her spare time, after her day job and before going to bed. At first, she handled a few commissions per month but it was Etsy that really helped heat things up on the dance floor.

This extra source of business has upped Charlotte's commissions to two to three per week, generating up to six hundred and fifty dollars per month. That’s a three hundred percent increase from the year before.

If it takes two to tango, then this business arrangement produced the perfect sequence.

 
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Quote of the Day
"Find something that you can offer that is personal to you. Don’t try to copy others, people will recognize it as their work. You want something that is yours."
—Charlotte Pacelli #SideHustleSchool

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To infinity and beyond,

Chris Guillebeau