How To Repurpose and Reuse Old Dance Costumes

Dance is expensive, one of the most expensive parts of dance are the costumes. If you have a child who dances, you know this. I have spent at least $1000 on costumes this year alone. Each one costing $60-100 and the majority of them will only be used once. After 5 years of dance recitals and my daughter having 4-12 dances each year, we have a closet full of old costumes.  All these costumes year after year can get overwhelming. Keep them? Throw them away? What do you do with them? Here are 5 ways to repurpose old dance costumes.

Use The Costume Again

Talk to your studio owner and/or dance teacher. See if there is a way for costumes to be used again the following year. My daughters first solo costume was her ballet costume from the year before. This year a few of her costumes will be used again next year for different things. There are many places costumes can be reused in other performances, solos, duos, trios etc. They cost so much money, get some use out of them.

Turn Your Dance Costumes Into Halloween Costumes

This is one of our favorite ways to repurpose old dance costumes. After spending $400-1000 a year on costumes, the last thing I am buying is a Halloween costume. So we use old dance costumes for this. A light purple lyrical costume because a Rapunzel, her scarecrow and monster costumes for dances well became scarecrows and monsters, a tap costume became a 20’s flapper girl costume. This year her acro costume has the bones to make the perfect Maleficent costume.

Play Dress Up With Your Old Dance Costumes

If you have little ones and you know you won’t be using the costume again, add the costume to your dress up bins. Little kids especially girls love to dress up and what better way to use old costumes! They can be ballerinas, princesses, etc. Not to mention this saves money from having to buy actual dress up costumes.

Sell Your Dance Costumes

There are many places online where you can sell used costumes and make back a fraction of the cost. Most people I see selling costumes usually get about 1/2 of what they paid for the costume originally. In fact Facebook is full of groups for this purpose. You can also try consignment sales and stores.

Donate Your Dance Costumes

Another thing you can do if you don’t want your daughters costumes hanging around is donate them. Nursery schools, mom’s day out, daycare centers would probably love to have them for their dress up areas. You can also donate them to Goodwill and the like for other little girls to be able to have them. Another place you can donate to is Traveling Tutus, they give the costumes to girls around the world who can’t afford costumes.

What do you do with old dance costumes?