The ballerina tutu remains a traditional object of desire for many young girls: an enduring emblem of diaphanous femininity, as well as the twirling centerpiece of more than a childhood music box. But is her long-standing connection to the world of professional dance now outdated?

Several prominent performers and choreographers think so, and while the shimmering costume of The Nutcracker Sugar Plum Fairy may not have quite been recorded in the wardrobe archives, her days may be numbered.

Late last year, former Royal Ballet principal ballerina Leanne Benjamin of Australian descent spoke candidly in public about her love for the tutu. She would be happy never to wear one again, she told an audience at the Australian Embassy gathered for the British launch of her autobiography, Designed for ballet. Traditional ballerina outfits have always felt restrictive to her, Benjamin said.

Talk to Observer over the weekend, the 57-year-old dancer and teacher admitted that the conventional form still had many fans among her fellow performers.

“The evolution of the tutu was designed to show off the leg,” she said. “In my book, I say that personally I didn’t like wearing a tutu, but most of my contemporaries love to wear them.”

Benjamin, who was in Covent Garden with Darcey Bussell, is clear his point of view may not prevail. “I’m not a manager of a company, so I speak as a spectator now,” she said. “And I’m not sure the gender distinctions come into the discussion. But tutus are a style of costume, and ongoing conversations just might affect decisions about what to do. I think we are all waiting and enjoying the evolution and will therefore welcome the sequel. “

Back in Benjamin’s homeland, the national ballet company has announced a new season of work that will move away from pretty costumes and orthodox staging. Artistic director David Hallberg, who has directed the Australian Ballet since last year, has not programmed any of the classic “tutu ballets,” such as Swan Lake, Giselle Where the Sleeping Beauty, and wish to take a break from bouncy tulle layers.

“I believe the ballet audience in Australia is very open to novelty,” he recently told the Guardian. “There is an opening.

Tutus aren’t outlawed for good, Hallberg says, but he acknowledges his dancers welcome something different. “They don’t get bogged down in the tradition or in the patina of companies like the Bolshoi or the Royal Ballet. They can absorb various styles more easily than a dancer trained in the French, Russian or English style.

And this revolution in the wardrobe department is not limited to those of Australian birth. Tamara Rojo, the famous Spanish ballerina who is artistic director of the English National Ballet at the Coliseum in London, is also turning away from the standard tutu in her first job as both choreographer and director.

Although Rojo has chosen to present an established work – Raymonde by Alexander Glazunov and Marius Petipa – his approach is revisionist, even radical. Not only will the piece’s sartorial conventions be sidelined, but the narrative’s focus is reworked to reflect modern concerns. Third act of the ballet, in which Hungarian influences are generally clear in a large wedding scene staged at the court of King Andrew II of Hungary, who had led the Crusades of 1217, Rojo removed the shimmering tutus and ornate ornaments . Instead, she is to show a chorus of European immigrants helping to collect Raymonda’s crops on her land.

And Jo Meredith, Creative Director of the UK’s National Youth Ballet, has also chosen to ditch many of the traditional stage orthodoxies for her latest Kurt Weill production. The seven deadly sins.

“Young ballet dancers usually have a very clear agenda and are very ‘on the ball’ when it comes to gender issues and stereotypes on stage,” she said.

“The idea of ​​gender neutral costumes also works really well with this show, which is set in the 1930s. We’re going to put everyone in a tuxedo.

It’s a decision particularly well suited to a production from another era where visual androgyny was celebrated, but Meredith believes it could fit into a ballet anytime.

“We have used short classic tutus in the past, as well as the longer romantic tutus that you often see in Giselle, or in many Degas paintings, ”she said. “But the idea of ​​the ballerina is growing and while there will always be a place for the Sugar Plum fairy, it’s very interesting to see what Tamara is doing now with it. Raymonde at the Colosseum. It’s a way to keep the ballet fresh and exciting.

Benjamin agrees that now presenting historical works without a tutu “would seem a shame”, but argues that they are not always relevant in a reinvented production.

She doesn’t ask, she adds, that the tutus suddenly disappear. “I saw how beautiful they can be and how they have evolved. However, the reality is that you are evaluating how it all works together.

“Watch how Stephen Galloway took inspiration from the tutu to modernize his costumes for the new Dizzying thrill of accuracy with the Pacific Northwest Ballet last year – and how Serena Williams got her own vision, wearing a tutu-style dress on the tennis court.