Our cheerleaders can beat up your cheerleaders.
Forget colorful pompons and bright hair ribbons — black and “stretch leatherette” is the tough and sexy look for the Brooklynette dancers, who will perform during halftime at the Barclays Center to cheer on the Brooklyn Nets.
“The uniforms are feminine and strong,” said the costumes’ designer, David Dalrymple, who has worked with fashion icon Patricia Field for decades, collaborating on costumes for “Sex and the City” and “The Devil Wears Prada.”
Instead of hair scrunchies, the Brooklynettes have boots, studded fingerless gloves, zippers and latex.
“This isn’t palm trees and sunshine. It’s New York City, and it’s Brooklyn. It’s a different sensibility. We go hard,” the designer said.
Dalrymple, 45, had designed the red and blue costumes for the Nets dancers in New Jersey and was hired to give the outfits an edgy makeover to commemorate the team’s move to Brooklyn.
“They had an empty closet we had to fill,” he said.
The Brooklynettes collection consists of seven full costumes.
“They have a jumpsuit, a neoprene scuba blazer with sequin leggings, a little cropped warm-up jacket, and painted sequin leggings,” Dalrymple said.
The squad of 20 dancers will debut its wardrobe when the Nets preseason begins next month. The Nets regular-season opener, against the Knicks, is at the Barclays Center on Nov. 1.
“I do a lot of clothes for people in music,” said Dalrymple, who has designed costumes for Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige as well as the famous nude diamond-adorned body suit Britney Spears wore on stage at the MTV Music Awards in 2000.
“My look is very pop star, or for the person who feels like a pop star,” he said.
“For these costumes, we needed things that these women can dance and move in, but we wanted to bring in street elements. We needed to find that bridge of street fashion that can actually work on the court.”