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"With the season 12 premiere of Dancing with the Stars just weeks away, we caught up with the king of fabulously kitschy stage ensembles, Emmy winning-costume designer Randall Christensen, to dish on everything from dressing to accommodate curves to knowing your limits on showing skin (yes, he has some!). Read the full interview, after the jump. Randall is in New York this week for the Wilhelmina 40+ Model Search (he&amp;#x27;ll serve as a wardrobe advisor and a judge in the final event--if you&amp;#x27;re fabulous and over 40, hit the open casting call this weekend in NYC, 3/12 from 10am to 3pm at Wilhelmina, 300 Park Avenue South, 2nd floor; or find out how to enter online), and we took the opportunity to chat him up about all things DWTS and looking and feeling confident, no matter your age. Here&amp;#x27;s what he had to say: STF: How did you end up involved with Wilhelmina&amp;#x27;s 40+ search? And what are you looking for that really makes a woman stand out? RC: All of my designing career, I&amp;#x27;ve worked with women who are over 40 as the majority of my clients, so I just thought, let&amp;#x27;s go for it. For me, no matter what your age, it&amp;#x27;s always about your presence. I look for the presence of confidence and inner beauty--eye contact, good posture, things like that. STF: Speaking of women over 40, there are a few that will be on season 12 of Dancing with the Stars! What&amp;#x27;s the biggest challenge there? And is there anyone in particular you&amp;#x27;re looking forward to working with? RC: We have such a good mix this season, which really makes you grow and stretch as a designer. I love the diversity. I have to say, I absolutely love dressing curvy women. In the dance industry we get so many thin women with narrow hips, to see a girl with a real body just makes the clothes look so much sexier! You look at someone like Kirstie Alley--her weight has gone up and down, and thats a concern&amp;amp;#133;but we&amp;#x27;ll play dress up and figure out how to make her look and feel amazing. STF: How, exactly, does that process work? RC: We just start by playing dress-up. I&amp;#x27;ll have her bring clothes from home, find out what she loves to wear, what she wants to play up, what she wants to play down. It will always be what she&amp;#x27;s comfortable wearing. I think this next week, her assistants will be bringing in dresses and see what works. But I&amp;#x27;m always about flaunting your best assets. STF: Is there one favorite celebrity you&amp;#x27;ve ever worked with? RC: I carried a torch for Jane Seymour for so long, so when I finally got to work with her it was just like, wow. She&amp;#x27;s just such a gorgeous woman, and when I met her I found she was also the most down-to-earth woman I&amp;#x27;d ever met. It was sort of the same with Florence Henderson. I grew up in the 70s, I was a Brady Bunch fan. And even Bristol Palin! When I first heard she was doing the show I was like, &amp;quot;really?!&amp;quot; But I think she showed that she can be glamorous and sexy without bearing it all. Sign up for our style newsletter and get the best of our fashion blog, delivered straight to your inbox! STF: I&amp;#x27;m actually so surprised at your answers...I think you picked some of the most low-key contestants the show has ever had! RC: The thing is, big-name actors and actresses aren&amp;#x27;t necessarily the most fun to dress. They&amp;#x27;re the most visible, but they&amp;#x27;re used to working in glamorous clothing and getting all dressed up. It&amp;#x27;s the athletes, the older women, the people who I have to get in the dressing room and strip down and earn their trust that really make me think creatively. They may be celebrities, but when we&amp;#x27;re in that dressing room, they&amp;#x27;re all just scared little girls that want to look their best. STF: What&amp;#x27;s the most memorable outfit you&amp;#x27;ve ever created for DWTS? RC: I think that would have to be the first time I did a paso doble that wasn&amp;#x27;t classic flamenco. We put it on Mel B, you know Scary Spice, and it was more dominatrix than flamenco. But if ever anyone could carry off dominatrix, it&amp;#x27;s Mel B! Her body was amazing, as the season went on she just kept getting tinier and curvier and she just looked incredible in that. STF: Do you ever have to draw a line with showing skin? How much is too much for TV? RC: Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s a tough line but sometimes we do need to put the brakes on. You have these women who are getting back bodies they haven&amp;#x27;t had in years--or in some cases, never had--and they want to show them off. They&amp;#x27;re proud of being in the best shape of their life and I want to empower them and encourage them, but sometimes you just have to say um, I don&amp;#x27;t think all of America needs to see quite that much! But showing a little skin is always fun, and I love finding new ways to do it every week. STF: Any advice for looking ballroom-ready for us regular women? RC: The thing I&amp;#x27;ve learned, from size 0 up to size 16+, is to invest in a good foundation garment. Don&amp;#x27;t make that dress do the work for you, you will feel the difference from the inside out. It is priceless! Invest in some Spanx--it will be the best investment you ever make. Oh, and always have something on that makes you smile, whether it&amp;#x27;s a sparkly bangle or a great handbag. PLUS... - Wedding dance lesson #1 proves one editor is not quite DWTS material yet AND! - The wardrobe on Dancing with the Stars: Let&amp;#x27;s discuss! What&amp;#x27;s With All the Spam in the Comments Section? Sick of all those annoying ads in the comments section lately? So are we! We police the site regularly and delete spam as soon as we can, but recently, the volume of spam has increased dramatically. We&amp;#x27;re working on a way to block them permanently, so please bear with us, and know that we&amp;#x27;re as eager as you are to get read of these pests. Meanwhile, please continue to use the Report Abuse button to flag spam--it really does help!-- and continue to leave your brilliant feedback below. If you have any urgent questions about the spam, please contact us. Photos: ABC Want even more STF? Follow us on Twitter! Latest Tweets!Follow us on Twitter!jQuery(&amp;quot;.blog-tweets&amp;quot;).tweet({username:[&amp;quot;glamour_fashion&amp;quot;,&amp;quot;cindi_leive&amp;quot;], count: 3}); "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/fashion/blogs/dressed/2011/03/dancing-with-the-stars-costume>