What to wear to your Aerial Silks/Aerial Fabric Class?
What to wear to your Aerial Silks Class?
As a follow up to my previous post about what to wear for your Aerial Hoop class (which can be found here!), here is the Silks counterpart!
The best fabric for Aerial Silks classes…
Whilst we went for slidey Nylon materials as the best choice for Hoop, Silks are a different story all together. Since the fabrics that we use at Flight Aerial Arts are 100% Polyester, I’ve found that non-natural fabrics don’t mix well with Silks, so the best all-round fabric is Cotton or Jersey. You can find Cotton leggings anywhere, however I generally avoid the super cheap brands like Primark or Boohoo since, despite the cool prints, they usually develop holes really quickly! I’ve bought lots of long lasting leggings from Matalan!
However, if you’re a beginner and learning to climb, or an advanced student who’s feeling a bit lazy, Velvet is your friend! Velvet on the legs provides for amazing grip against the fabrics and it works as my secret weapon on days where I’m not feeling at my top strength. I’ve bought various different velvet leggings from different retailers, but my favourites are from Matalan! They don’t stock them very often, so check their site regularly.
[TOP TIP: when searching on online shopping sites for velvet leggings, also try searching for ‘flocked’]
The fit…
The same important aspect of fit which I talked about in the Hoop post, applies here with silks. No baggy tops, since we’re going upside down a lot! Furthermore, I don’t think I need to talk anymore about the wonders of the catsuit in yet another post, but they are equally as amazing for silks as they are for Hoop. Sadly it is slightly harder to find catsuits that suit Silks, since a lot of them are slidey Nylon! Asos stock a great small range of cotton or jersey catsuits which you should most definitely check out, but the Holy Grail in Aerial Silks attire, for fabric and fit, has to be the VELVET CATSUIT.
These are elusive, and when you find one you like, you will have to be willing to make an investment. Wholesale Dance stock a few different all-velvet designs in a range of cool colours, and a bunch of nice Velvet cotton designs from £22.50…
Full length or Calf length?
The final point of debate for Silks attire is the length of the legs! To avoid burns, it is essential that the backs of your knees are covered. However from experience, I’ve found that sometimes it’s pretty useful to be able to roll your leggings up so that you can expose the knee when you get to more advanced moves such as the Double Knee Climb. The solution to this for me is calf length leggings. Easy to roll up, and protection for the back of the knee all rolled into one! They also allow for better grip when climbing and if you’re short like me they have the added bonus of making your legs look a big longer!
To conclude, I’ve just discovered these amazing Cotton calf-length catsuits from Whole Sale Dance and I will most certainly be purchasing one (or maybe a few) for £21.25 each!
Aerial Love
Dan xxx
