BJ Dance Towels – By Dancers for Dancers, for Sweating in Style

I saw BJ Dance Towels at some point in the past year on social media and added it to my blog topic list, thinking, “Is a towel just a towel or something more? I’ll check this out later, this looks interesting.” As I was working my way down the list I got the kindest email from BJ Dance Towels creator Benedikt Jockenhöfer about reviewing his dance towels, then a follow-up offering to send me a towel to review. Subsequent communications were also humble and lovely and it can’t be stated enough how nice it is to receive this kind of correspondence, particularly where someone is trying to promote a product. He believes in these dance towels and now I believe in them, too.

To answer my question above, the towel is something more – it’s both a functional, sweat-wiping, absorbant microfiber towel that is incredibly soft and smooth, as well as a lovely fabric statement of style. Benedikt drew inspiration from classic menswear, the silk scarves that were often seen around necks and draped over lapels of the past and present. For his inaugural towel offerings, he chose shades of red, white, and blue, which coordinate with a lot of clothing, and drew his themes from two popular swing era topics – aviation and Art Deco design.

A vintage silk scarf from my collection on the left; a BJ Dance Towel on the right, fresh out of the box.

Let’s walk through the receipt of my Savoy dance towel. I opened the package from Germany to find a well-crafted box with the BJ Dance Towels logo and some lovely design work. I am immediately smitten and thinking that this box will be great for traveling, either to carry jewelry or flat hair flowers.

I open it up to find an inspirational quote from Dave Brubeck – am I bombastic? To your average non-dancer, I probably am the most bombastic, fearless, dancy-dancer and where did I learn to dance like this? How I forget sometimes that what we do seems like magic to others, but is actually a skill and we devote countless ours of our lives and all of ourselves to it because we love the music and the movement. But I digress – is there a towel in there?

Of course there is! The microfiber Savoy towel feels incredibly soft and substantial, something that will not shirk away from a thorough swiping of your face and neck. Once out of the box the wrinkling was minimal – this is definitely not something you need to iron or baby. I am recovering from hip surgery, so at the time I received this towel I wasn’t cleared to dance, but I did go for a brisk walk to break a sweat and patted myself down afterwards. Sweat was absorbed, with great softness and ease. The fabric seemed neutral in terms of response to my body temperature. I could see it being cool when I need it to be cool and warm if I needed to wrap it around my neck and run out into the winter night after a dance. I washed and dried it and it came out beautifully, looking as good as it did when I pulled it out of the box, even after leaving it in the dryer with bath towels for three days.

Also in the package with the box, quote, and towel was an invoice with a handwritten letter on the back from Benedikt, sharing his joy for these scarf/towels, a note about the label on the scarf with washing instructions (which is mandatory in the US and the tag comes off easily), and notes about the fabric. Let’s do talk about the fabric, which is really what makes this special. A lot of thought went into this and the BJ Dance Towels crew decided to go with microfiber for a number of reasons, quoted from the website:

Better for the environment – They are made from recycled plastics so they actually reduce the plastic in the world.
Better for absorbtion – 1/3rd more absorption than a kitchen towel
Antibacterial
Lighter
Dries 1000% faster (Yes, it’s three 0’s)
The towel absorbs about 300% of its own weight in water. That is about 170-180ml of water, or almost a full glass of wine. And it does that super quickly and dries impressively fast. We tested it all in this video for you: https://fb.watch/2Zi5LKuDnJ/

In researching microfibers, they discovered that the best microfiber is produced in China and, through a friend who works at Porsche, discovered the company Porsche uses to produce its high quality microfiber. This is definitely the closest I will ever come to owning a Porsche.

Pulling again from the BJ Dance Towels FAQ page, to answer in summary the question of why these particular dimensions (30 x 120) of fabric for a dance towel:

Style!
More surface area than a hand towel.
A smaller towel may get lost more easily or fall off the back of a chair. This towel was designed to hang on the back of most chairs and not touch the ground.
The German Swing Kids would wear elaborate opera scarves and this is made in that tradition – YES!
Can actually be used as a scarf for warmth.

You may be thinking, “OK, this sounds great, but how will I tell my dance towel apart from others at a dance event if everyone jumps on this train?” I recommend a few avenues to claim your dance towel – one involves a permanent marker and the other involves taking your towel to a local embroidery shop to personalize it with your initials or name. If you’re particularly adventurous, add fringe. Maybe sew a particular button on one end of it. Get creative!

Since you may not be 100% back to dancing in your part of the world, consider that summer is coming in the northern hemisphere and you may find yourself attending more outdoor COVID-safe events that would necessitate nicer attire than stretchy pants and a tee shirt. Rather than sweat it out, you could blot yourself with a BJ Dance Towel in one hand and fan yourself with the other hand.

Speaking of sweat, not only does the BJ Dance Towels offer beautiful sweat moppers, they also have a page devoted to troubleshooting sweating and dancing – definitely a helpful “But wait! There’s more!”

I’ll close with a quote from the BJ Dance Towels vision summary: “We want to honor…those who know that carrying a towel is a favor they do to everyone around them.” This is about caring for yourself and others. As someone who has left a dance covered in more of other people’s sweat than my own, I salute you.

EDITED 6/24/21 to add that BJ Dance Towels now has an embroidery machine so you can have your name/initials/special word added to the dance towel to make sure other dancers know it’s yours.

What’s Old Is New: Keep Punching

This post was written by Lindy Shopper.

There is a lot of documented history about the creation and performance of The Big Apple line dance in the 1939 film “Keep Punching” – if you don’t know this story already, take a gander at Wikipedia, The Lindy Circle, and Savoy Style. It’s the story of a dance within a dance craze! I love this clip for its energy, the individual style (dancing and clothing) of each of the dancers, and also because they keep it simple and functional – this clothing is obviously their own normal street clothing, with the exception of the coordinating Whitey’s Savoy Lindy Hoppers tee shirts. I imagine this is a snapshot into what they might wear on any given night of the week out at a dance (compare to the more fancy street clothing/costumes in Hot Chocolate (Cottontail) or the outright dance costumes in The Harlem Congaroos clip). There is an array of interesting clothing in this clip – from the dancers to the more fancy daywear/cocktail attire of the actors/extras to the orchestra in tails.

There are so many pieces of clothing worn by the dancers in this clip that are accessible today, so let’s dig in:

First, those custom Whitey’s Savoy Lindy Hoppers tee shirts – we don’t have the light background with the darker graphics, but Chloe Hong has reproduced this graphic on dark blue and dark red tees that you can order from her website. Since none of us hold a candle to the original Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, we can view these shirts as aspirational/inspirational, a tribute to these original dancers and innovators. I love that some of the tee shirts in the clip are worn as-is and others are worn over another shirt, as layers. This makes me think of the ever present battle of sweat management – if that tee shirt has to last through a day of many film takes under hot lights, you might need that base layer to keep things fresh on the outside.

SJC spearpoint in check

Since men’s reproduction knitwear is still a bit of an outlier, your best collared “undershirt” solution to get the look from the video is to pick up one of Simon James Cathcart’s short sleeved polos with that distinctive spearpoint collar – they are also made of wicking bamboo fabric, so extra helpful with sweat management. Available in nine colors and I wouldn’t be surprised if SJC was going to release some more in the future. Even though the men in this clip are wearing the spearpoint collars, these polos are also great for women, I have a few and I love them.

A few of the women in this clip looks like they may be wearing either some sort of collared or uncollared blouse underneath their tee shirt or they may be wearing a scarf tied loosely around their neck and tucked in a bit at the tee shirt collar. The House of Foxy’s 1940’s shirt in crepe would give a similar effect to the pointed collar blouses in the clip, with just the top points peeking out and the crepe being flexible enough to work around the tee shirt collar and lay right. One of the women is wearing a belt with her flared skirt and it looks awesome, but the video quality is such that I can’t tell if the belt is leather, fabric, or some other material.

Heyday’s A-line skirt

While there is one woman in a flared skirt (and I say that relatively, as we’re not talking Dior “new look” volume, just a bit more twirl than the other women), rest of the women in this clip are in A-line skirts, something with a more streamlined profile, but with enough radius at the hemline to allow for kicks and movement. This skirt silhouette and just-below-the-knee hemline shows the fashion transition to the 1940’s silhouette, when you contrast with the calf-length skirts from the film A Day at the Races that came out just two years before Keep Punching.

UK brand Heyday has a nice A-line skirt, available in several prints and solid colors, I love the quality, wearability, and washability of their pieces. If you are going for the more full skirt, it looks like the House of Foxy’s Whirlaway Skirt fits the bill of being not to full, not too A-line, but just right in terms of fullness for the purposes of this clip. It’s also available in 7 colors and ditto on the quality coming out of this UK brand. Would wear both of these skirts for dancing and for work and for anything, really.

Men’s bottoms look like your standard fare for trousers, tucked in shirt or not tucked in – I mean, whatever’s comfortable for you after umpteen takes, right? If you are looking for something high waisted, I can’t say enough good things about SJC’s 1930’s chinos, which can handle belt or braces. Or just go and buy whatever lightweight, breathable trousers you can find and wear that shirt untucked! The exact right pants are usually hard to find, but for this look it’s not an absolute essential, the devil is in the other details. For the tucked-in crowd, note the dancer with the skinny belt – how skinny is up to you and your pants loops. Google was an absolute failure at looking for skinny belts (“no, Google, I mean REALLY skinny, 1.5 inches wide isn’t skinny!”), so dive deeper into your internet searches and/or go to the women’s section of a department store to buy one because nobody cares where it comes from.

The footwear is all over the map. I see white Keds-like sneakers with dark socks (that may color-coordinate with the collared shirt under the tee shirt) and in other colors (Gray? Black? Oh, wait, we’re not in Technicolor), or maybe even a shoe with a more substantial sole closer to Vans’ classic shoe (or their newly engineered more flexible/lightweight version).

OHAI PRETTY SHUEZ

I see a couple of pairs of saddle shoes thrown in the mix and, though most modern associations are with the 1950’s, the saddle shoe’s popularity boomed in the decades prior to the 1950’s, as well. Most saddle shoes I see today have a crepe sole, which isn’t my favorite for dancing, but Re-mix carries them with a leather sole. I’d consider giving this Restricted pair from ModCloth a whirl because they have leather interiors (for my sensitive feet), what appears to be a flat synthetic sole, and because the blue/brown color combo is awesome. Then I go and find this yellow and white Chelsea Crew pair…I need to stop while I’m ahead.

One of the dancers wears a pair of low heeled sandals with an ankle strap, akin to Saint Savoy’s Eden shoe or Chelsea Crew’s Nadia sandal – she’s also sporting them with some ankle socks, which may be part fashion-forward, part blister/sweat management.

Finally, one dancer has some classic leather oxfords on, which previous discussions on my blog have covered everything from buying them used at thrift stores to getting your first pair of Aris Allens to splurging for a pair of Allen Edmonds (or finding them used on eBay).

To recap: classic dance shoes of your choosing, socks, comfy pants/skirt, signature tee shirt, optional undershirt/collar/scarf action. One might say this is not too far from what we are wearing on the dance floor today. Now, time to go practice the second half of the Big Apple that I never seem to remember….

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Vintage Jazz and Lindy Hop Jamberry Nails

This post was written by Lindy Shopper.

Albuquerque swing dancer Alyx Hodges has designed several sets of Jamberry fingernails, featuring artwork from vintage jazz, swing, and jazz dance posters! You can order a set through Alyx’s Jamberry group on Facebook – essentially, you buy gift certificates through Jamberry and, because Alyx created this custom set, you have to order them through her. I’m not one to ever have my fingernails done, but the thought of having Artie Shaw or Duke Ellington on my nails is VERY tempting…

Remix Savoy

This post was written by Lindy Shopper.

This has got to be the deal of the week – this pair of Remix Savoy heels in black, size 7, only one bid at $29.99, or Buy It Now – $89.99. Super steal!