Creating costumes for ballet can be a simple matter of dressing characters for a role. What’s the Sugar Plum Fairy going to wear? Definitely nothing in burlap. But when a costume designer is working on an abstract ballet – in which there is a feeling or idea in relation to music instead of characters to a story- the process is a little more hit-or-miss.

Costume designer Liz Prince has a hit with her costumes for Trey McIntyre’s new work “Pretty Good Year,” on stage currently during American Ballet Theatre’s season at City Center. For the seven dancers in this work, Ms. Prince created a look in the unusual (for ballet) palette of yellow, gray, and silver.

The women’s outfits consist of fitted bodices that meet short, bell-shaped skirts. They’re technically tutus, but look more like swingy, fun mini skirts that you’d buy if you could. For the men, the tops are tight poet-style shirts; short pants, and tall boots. What fascinated me was the swing and bounce in the skirts, especially the one worn by the lead dancer Stella Abrera. How did Ms. Prince achieve that movement?

Ms. Prince told me that when she was brought into the project in August, she had two things from which to be inspired. First, the music: Dvoyrak’s Piano Trio (which she listened to for three weeks straight). Second, a clip from a magazine that Mr. McIntyre sent her, of a pumpkin covered in fabric with polka dots.

That meant a color scheme of yellow and black – which doesn’t exactly sound promising. But Ms. Prince had a plan to have the giant dots silk-screened digitally onto fabric, and as she sketched the designs she made further changes. “I knew that yellow and black would be too dark, so I moved to grey and yellow, then silver and yellow,” she said. “I also pushed it more into regular clothing rather than dotted op-art.”

Though it’s helpful for choreographers to provide a visual, in this case, Ms. Prince, who has worked with Mr. McIntyre before (on “Plush” and “The Reassuring Effects of Form and Poetry”), felt free to roam: “This is the first time I have taken something so far from what he gave me.”

Once the designs were set, the next step was to have the costumes created. For that Ms. Prince had the luxury of tapping into ABT’s close relationship with the Barbara Matera studio. “They just know all the dancer’s bodies,” Ms. Prince said. “We looked at what seemed like hundreds of swatches, and I was able to pick and choose.”

Speaking of fabric, here’s the secret of the skirts: They’re made of 11 layers of fabric including silk chiffon and polyester georgette. The chiffon is there for style, but the georgette is there for strength. “After a lot of body moment, chiffon tends to sigh,” Ms. Prince said.

What all those layers create is a perky fullness, which allows the skirts to match the zip and verve of the choreography and the music. “It’s a heavy, flippy quality,” she explained. “If it had been one or two layers, it would have had more flow and a lyrical quality. It wouldn’t have been so rambunctious.”

As for the bodices, they are a bit different for this style of dance. “They’re fitted and boned, but they have a bust cup, which generally you don’t have accentuated in ballet,” said the designer. “They have a sculptural effect.”

The yellowish color scheme was always a part of the plan, but Ms. Prince encountered some hesitation at the shop when it came time to make the boot for the lead male dancer Herman Cornejo. Yellow boots in ballet aren’t exactly common. “Yellow has a lovely, delightful quality,” Ms. Prince said. “It was able to capture that aggressiveness in the music.”

Though Ms. Abrera’s skirt was originally also yellow, it was changed during the dress rehearsals out of concern that the color was overly aggressive. Three layers of her skirt were removed in favor of a slightly longer, shimmery gray fabric.

Though all the changes made from the initial tear sheet to the opening night could cause some artistes to explode, Ms. Prince speaks with a sense of fascination with the creative process and appreciation for Mr. McIntyre. “You really have to connect with the choreographer, to develop a language that you can use to cut to the chase,” she said.

Ms. Prince did not study costume design, but was surrounded by artists as a child. Her father is a sculptor, and her mother, a painter. Which certainly contributed to her sense of style: “We’d play color games in the car instead of alphabet games: ‘What color do you see?'”

She’s been in the business of creating costumes for dance companies for years. Her credits include work for Bill T. Jones, Doug Varrone, and a 1990 Bessie award for design, which honors achievements in dance and performing arts and is given by a committee of New York dance-world names. Her next project is with Bebe Miller’s company.

With so much dance work, does the lack of specific guidelines ever drive her to the brink? Not so much. “I can do straight on theater, but I feel lucky that I get a chance to try out different stuff.”

Audiences are lucky, too.

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Earlier this month, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced that Frank Gehry would design the dance venue at the new World Trade Center site, where the Joyce Theater will do the dance programming. What a snooze.

With all due respect to Mr. Gehry as an artist, this decision is of the weakest sort, clearly made on the grounds of name – he didn’t even present renderings. It says to the rest of the field: no matter how creative you are, don’t even bother showing up.

Mr. Gehry is a celebrity architect. Everyone wants him. And everyone already has him. Now New York is in the position of scrambling to catch up with Los Angeles, with Chicago. Please. New York should be setting the trend, not following it. And isn’t this a trend from the early 1990s anyway?

I find it impossible to believe that there was not one design that had enough spark to outshine this “star-chitect.”