The “Waterloo” Project
In 1974, ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest representing Sweden with their song “Waterloo,” changing the world of pop music forever.
In 2024, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their historic win, and the 20th anniversary of Dancing Queen: An ABBA Salute, we decided to recreate the costumes ABBA wore when they performed at Eurovision, including Bjorn’s famous star guitar!
Leading up to Eurovision, Frida was inspired by a white jacket with metallic chains at Stockholm store Gröna Moln Och Blått Gräs ("Green Clouds and Blue Grass") and met the store’s lead designer, Inger Svenneke. Inger was commisioned to create the costumes for the Eurovision performance based off of Frida’s jacket.
According to Vogue Scandinavia, “After ABBA's famous victory, a look was born. From this point on, wide bellbottoms, platform boots, and mix-and-match silhouettes not only emerged as a defining aesthetic for the group, but also became synonymous with the style DNA of Scandinavia.”
Our Costumes
Just like Frida knew when choosing Inger Svenneke to help design and create the new costumes, we knew we needed some exceptional artists to create our replicas. Our goal was to have something highly authentic that was also resilient enough to wear on-stage. Appropriately, our Frida kicked off the project and coordinated the team! Our Benny knew of a great costume designer from the Chicago musical theater scene named Beth, and our Agnetha and Björn knew their fellow godparent Lauren had a passion for costume design in addition to all things ABBA and Eurovision! With a perfect meshing of skills, our amazing team was assembled with Lauren Summers as Project Manager and Beth Uber handling Draping and Construction. What they created completely exceeded our expectations! Please read their bios further below.
The creative process included creating a custom fabric to match one of Frida’s prints (thank you Benny!), a trip to Stockholm for an up-close look at the museum replicas, fabric shopping out in California, and many detailed conversations. One of the toughest parts was determining colors and fabrics from the images and videos we found, because there was some variation between the original Eurovision costumes, how they were worn after that winning performance, and the available museum replicas. For example, if you visit ABBA The Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, you will find these replica costumes on display (compare them to the photo above to see the differences).
All of the attention to detail and detective work paid off, because we ended up with costumes that are closer to the originals than the ones on display in Stockholm! Our design team made them with our stage movements in mind, giving them the resiliency that we were trying to achieve. Our goal had been authentic, stage-worthy pieces, and the result was museum-quality, performance-ready works of art!
Cheryl, our Frida, created costumes for Davide (bass) and Keith (drums) that were inspired by what the bassist and drummer wore at the original 1974 Eurovision performance in order to tie the “Waterloo” look into the whole band.
Pictured here are our completed “Waterloo” costumes!
Costume Team
Beth Uber
Draping/Construction
Beth Uber is the owner of and head draper at Uber Costume. Graduating with a BFA in Costume Production from the Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Beth began her professional career in the Minneapolis and Seattle areas. She moved to Chicago and began working at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2010. Beth draped on more than 25 productions at CST. Having made many professional connections in her 5 years at CST, Beth left the company to start Uber Costume, an independent shop which creates costumes for theater, opera, and dance. Since opening in 2015, Beth and the team at Uber Costume have contributed costumes and clothing to nearly 150 projects to more than 50 companies and individuals around the country. She was the recipient of the Robert Christen Award for Excellence in Technical Collaboration at the 2018 Michael Merritt Awards.
Dancing Queen Waterloo Project Team: Beth Uber, Bob Kuhn, Angelica Tozzi
Lauren Summers
Project Manager
Lauren Summers graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with her BFA, spending four wonderful years in the costume shop as her work study job. It was there that she realized her passion for costume design and construction. In college, she also discovered the Eurovision Song Contest and embarked on a lifetime love of traveling to Europe for the festivities. Combining these two obsessions, this was a dream project to be called to work on.
Björn’s Star Guitar
The original Star guitar was designed and handmade by Göran Malmberg on commission for Björn. It was used for the first time in 1974 at Eurovision to play “Waterloo”!
Only one guitar was made! In 2013 the original guitar disappeared mysteriously for many years, so Göran built a handmade replica for the ABBA Museum. Thankfully, the original has since been found and now also resides in the museum. In 2014, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of ABBA winning Eurovision, a limited run of 50 replica guitars were made, signed by both Göran and Björn, and sold at auction.
With the replicas not available for purchase anymore, I searched for a company that could custom make their own replica of the Star guitar, and I thankfully found an amazing company based in Poland called Mensinger Custom Guitars.
Pictured first is the original Malmberg Star guitar, and beneath that you’ll see the replica that was made for me by the luthiers and artists at Mensinger Custom Guitars!
There aren’t many instrument companies that make a guitar like this, and although it’s a tribute/replica of the Malmberg original, our “Björn” definitely feels a real tie to the past when he plays this guitar at our performances! The Mensinger Star guitar sounds just as beautiful as it looks (thank you Adrian at Mensinger)!
Performance Photos
Our “Waterloo” costumes only make appearances at select shows, but you will see the Star guitar at almost every performance! It was an adventure creating these tributes to the famous costumes and guitar made for ABBA’s momentous appearance at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. Every time we wear the costumes it connects us to the past and that world-changing moment when ABBA’s Eurovision victory changed the course of popular music forever!
