(2011 winner Valentina Naforniţă with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa)
Singers: we want you to kill a stage before you even open your mouth. And you can't do that in ill-fitting, off-the-rack eveningwear.
As the 30th BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition nears, we've poured through images from the past three decades of rising and falling hemlines/décolletage worn by winners such as Nina Stemme, Karita Mattila, Anja Harteros, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Bryn Terfel, none of whom had the luxury of personal stylists.
Check out OC's piece on Sinfini Music here and unsheath your Meisterstück because you're going to want to take notes!