Meet the Dancing Duo Behind the Dancewear Brand “Barre Trash”
What happens when two ballet dancers with opinions on the dance industry and a shared sense of humor get together? For Louis DeFelice and Lucas Labrador, the founders of the dancewear brand Barre Trash, what started as a friendship has grown into a business and a community for dancers.
DeFelice and Labrador met while dancing in a touring production of Swan Lake in Europe. They bonded over their shared backgrounds as ballet late-starters—Labrador was a soccer player before starting ballet at 17, and musical theater led DeFelice to start ballet at 14. They also connected over their frustration with aspects of the ballet industry, like audition fees, unrealistic body expectations, and low pay. Their friendship developed quickly, and they decided to team up on a new business that would bring them some agency in their careers and let them critique the ballet industry in a lighthearted yet truthful way.
“When you deliver criticism with humor, it spreads far and fast,” DeFelice says.
DeFelice and Labrador partnered to create Barre Trash, a clothing brand. The name features prominently on items like hoodies, shirts, and tote bags.
“ ‘Barre trash’ refers to the heavy, bigger warm-ups that we [dancers] wear when we’re warming up for the day,” DeFelice says. “If you ‘take off your trash’ in class, that means you’re warm. But it sounds a little bit like ‘Eurotrash,’ too. Like an ironic alternative identity, a little bit irreverent.”
That tone, somewhere between cute and rebellious, is the through line of all the brand’s offerings. They started with funny T-shirts and hoodies, like a shirt that says “Just Turn Out More” and one of Agrippina Vaganova wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. Later, they expanded to include more dancewear offerings, like overalls and, of course, trash bag pants.
Labrador dances for Ballet Nacional de Sodre, the national company of Uruguay, and DeFelice is based in the U.S., so most of their collaboration is done digitally. “We’re six hours apart now,” Labrador says. “When I wake up, I have a whole summary of what’s going on with the company [from DeFelice], and when I get off my day at the theater, he gets a whole summary about what’s going on on social or analytics about the website.” They meet several times a week via video, which is when the majority of their brainstorming happens. “I have a huge whiteboard [of ideas and notes], which I know Louis hates,” Labrador jokes. The pair also meet multiple times a year in person for photo shoots and brand strategizing.
DeFelice and Labrador are motivated by a desire to create relationships in the ballet community, like the friendship they found in each other. They want to encourage other dancers to take agency in their own careers and find artistic fulfillment outside of the ballet studio, like they have.
“That’s one of the things I think about when I see Lucas and I reaching 3 million people a month just on the Barre Trash [Instagram] account,” DeFelice says. “People in ballet are so disciplined and so talented and so smart and so able to put in hard work over long periods of time. And I think it’s too bad that so often their autonomy gets a little squashed.”
“I mean, more than anything, growing a business is fun,” Labrador says. “You can’t stop me from doing it. It’s just too enjoyable, too interesting. A great fulfilling challenge.”
DeFelice adds, “Most dancewear companies are not owned and run and operated by dancers, so the voice that we have as a brand—it’s sincere.”
