Tutu designed by Grant Heaps, Wardrobe Coordinator for The National Ballet of Canada

The National Ballet of Canada commissioned Grant Heaps to create a tutu listing the names and dates of every ballet the company has performed since its first performance 60 years ago, in 1951. He sought to make the tutu pretty and simple, and to keep its decoration within the confines of traditional ballet style.
Grant Heaps was born in Toronto, where he studied fashion. After designing, producing, wholesaling and retailing a line of women’s shirts for several years, he ventured to work with some of Toronto’s largescale theatre productions before joining the National Ballet nearly 18 years ago. Inspired by a quilt his mother made him from tie samples he had plucked from the trash, Grant is currently pursuing a project in quilt-making. The series of non-functional quilts will tell the story of a person watching a theatrical production, and will eventually form one enormous picture collage of pop songs, personal obsessions and emotions that have taken over his life in the best possible way.