Dancing to a seventh-place finish on the first day of competition on Saturday, Gilles and Poirier wore spandex jumpsuits with colorful feathers on the shoulders, or maybe they were swirls. The facades were on fire with Vs of rhinestones that plunged to the lowest; the backs clung tightly to every curve. The costumes demanded attention.
That’s why Gilles and Poirier loved them.
Their rhythm dance routine is based on two songs by Elton John, “I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues” and “I’m Still Standing”. And from their perspective, if you’re going with Elton John to the Olympics, you have to go all-in.
“He’s such a showman and he’s always about putting on a show and so we wanted this program to be that, putting on a show, putting on a show for the people and making a bold statement. And that’s why we wanted suits that made a bold statement in a bold color,” Poirier said Saturday night.
So they called their costume designer, Peter DeFreitas, and asked for the best interpretation of Elton John that DeFreitas could do. He came back with the ones they wear now – in several different colors – to see which one had what Gilles described as “the most impact”.
“And the orange was just the one that was so bright that you’re like ‘that’s it! “”, Did she say.
Not everyone can rock orange spandex jumpsuits covered in sequins and rhinestones, but Gilles and Poirier have a habit of turning the skating circuit into their personal Halloween party. They went to roller derby and bullfighter and Sgt. Pepper, as well as more conservative selections.
Two years ago, while dressed in a matching black tuxedo with pink piping, Piper caught her hair on the button of Paul’s shirt. They skated this way for about five seconds, Poirier standing with the top of Gillis’ head strapped to his chest.
“It was like one of those pure moments of panic, like, what am I doing? Are we stopping? Are we carrying on? Paul is like, keep going” , she later told reporters.
They haven’t experienced similar disasters in the current orange suits they’ve been wearing since the start of the fall skating season – a miracle considering how many sequins and rhinestones Poirier estimates to be in the “hundreds and hundreds if not thousands.
“Thousands” is also what two costumes in spandex, sherbet orange, rhinestones and sequins cost, Gillis said, though the expenses are covered by skater sponsorships. And when they step onto the ice in a traffic cone fire, the reaction is worth it.
“You go out and people say, ‘You’re like a sunset,'” Gillis said. “Like an orange sunset.”
And the best thing anyone said about costumes?
That “we have nice butts,” she said.
But when asked if that made it her favorite of all her skating costumes, she stopped.
“He’s one of them,” she said. “I would say it’s hard to pick a favourite.”
Standing beside her, Poirier burst out laughing.
“I love all my children equally,” he said.
Afterwards, the two crossed the mixed zone in their glittering cream suits, two skaters leaving the Olympic ice and returning to the 1970s.
