Inside Victoria Hulland's Dance Bag
You could say that Victoria Hulland is Sarasota Ballet’s resident corn pad dealer. The principal dancer keeps her bag stocked with special, extra-thick pads, which she uses between her toes. “A lot of the girls come to me if they have really bad corns,” she says. “You can’t buy these from CVS.” Since she gets them from a podiatrist back home in New York, she either stocks up when visiting or employs her father to pick up multiple packs and send them down to Florida.
Hulland has turned to her colleagues for specialty items, too. Her gray warm-ups are actually a production sample from a knitwear machine company, where a co-worker’s girlfriend works. And artistic director Iain Webb brings the dancers one of her favorite candies, Percy Pig gummies, back from his trips home to the UK. Resourcefully, Hulland has found another use for the candy’s cute packaging: The pig-shaped tin makes a perfect hairpin holder.
Vutti Photography
The Goods Clockwise from
left:
Marc Jacobs bag (“It’s purposely small, otherwise I would pack too much”); legwarmers; Band-Aids; pointe shoes; lambswool; corn pads; water bottle; spray rosin (good for keeping pointe shoes, costumes and partners’ hands from slipping); mesh shoe bag; technique shoes; Stoll warm-ups; black tour jacket; booties; Thera-Bands; New York tour info packet; deodorant; Jo Malone perfume samples (“You always want to smell good for your partners”); mints; Percy Pig hairpin tin; massage balls; navy wrap skirt; small velvet bag (for perfume); clear bag containing scissors, Neosporin, stitch kit and sports tapes (“I use cloth tape for my toes. It stays on in my pointe shoes but slides off easier”).