‘Dancing With the Stars’ Costume Designer Talks Transforming Anna Delvey’s Ankle Monitor Into ‘Part of the Costume’ for Season 33

The 33rd season of ABC’s “ Dancing With the Stars ” features a new crop of celebrities from “The Bachelorette” lead Jenn Tran to “Beverly Hills 90210” alum Tori Spelling, USA Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik and more. But few cast members have faced the same type of scrutiny as contestant Anna Delvey.

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Delvey, also known as Anna Sorokin , was arrested in 2018 after deceiving the wealthy upper echelons of New York’s art and social scenes between 2013 and 2017 by posing as an heiress. The “fake heiress” saga captivated the public, and it was dramatized in the 2022 Netflix drama series “ Inventing Anna .”

Delvey is under house arrest in New York City following immigration court proceedings, wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor. She has been granted permission to travel to Los Angeles in order to film the reality competition series. “Anytime someone is under house arrest is because there is a pending criminal investigation or for some punishment,” Delvey exclusively told WWD in a previous interview. “I was under house arrest purely for immigration. I had served my criminal time and I had repaid my restitution even though they keep spreading this false info that I owe so many people so much money. But when you ask who and how much, nobody can come up with anything.”

Paired with professional dancer Ezra Sosa, Delvey will make her “DWTS” ballroom dancing debut during the Season 33 premiere on Tuesday. Ahead of the new season, WWD spoke with longtime “DWTS” costume designer Daniela Gschwendtner about outfitting Delvey and working around her ankle monitor.

“We’ll try to probably do something fun with it — make it sparkly, maybe,” Gschwendtner said of Delvey’s ankle monitor. “We’re going to try and do something fun with it so it becomes part of the costume. The costume itself won’t be affected by it,” she said, adding that she’ll “try to do something cute with it to make it look all pretty together.”

Gschwendtner has served as the “DWTS” costume designer for more than 200 episodes of the series’ roughly 500-episode run. She’s worked on costumes for dozens of celebrities, and doesn’t feel too concerned by Delvey’s ankle monitor. “Our costumes are really prepared for a lot of things. I don’t foresee that anklet being any issue on any of the costumes we’re going to do.”

This season, as with each new installment of the reality competition series, Gschwendtner looks forward to implementing “new and fresh ideas. You try to not repeat what you’ve done in the past,” she said. She’s also prepared for any challenges.

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“There’s always challenges. You never know where they’re coming from that’s the main challenge. The main challenge is that we don’t know what our challenges will be,” Gschwendtner said.

Right now, Gschwendtner’s main goal is to “get to know everybody so that I, hopefully, make good decisions when I design for them. This is the challenge at the beginning, when you don’t know the new celebrities yet. You need to find out the comfort zones, their style, their likes and dislikes and then hopefully going into the season you make better and better choices.”

After working as a costume designer for “DWTS” for years — dating back to 2009 — Gschwendtner says “things are a little less scary than they use to be but [the challenges] will always be there.”

On the cast, Gschwendtner said, “The ladies are all very excited to be in the process of costumes and to sit with me and design an outfit for themselves.…I think I have a fabulous cast this year.”

“Dancing With the Stars” premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+.

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