US figure skaters Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani were in full Michael Jackson mode midway through their Olympic ice dance program, shaking their hips in zippered and rhinestone-studded costumes.
Then, during the Man in the Mirror portion, Alex hoisted his younger sister onto his shoulders and they encountered an ice dancer's nightmare.
Her skirt and tights snagged on one his zippers or stones and she struggled to get free.
The American brother-sister duo from Michigan had worked closely with Michael Jackson's choreographers on the black costumes, down to the very last bead, sequin, crystal, zipper, and rhinestone.
They had rehearsed in the costumes countless times and never had any trouble.
Until they were performing on the biggest stage of their lives.
They couldn't curse. They couldn't stop. They had to improvise, and keep smiling, because that's what figure skaters do.
"My skirt and my tights got completely caught on his shoulder," said Maia, 19.
"It's a very challenging lift with a lot of different changes of position, so once I was on top of his shoulder it just got stuck and I'm supposed to drop down and twist and if I'm stuck I can't do that, so we had two options-put the lift down and rip everything ("or undress," joked her brother) or improvise, which is what we did. We handled the situation best we could."
Maia managed to rip away from her brother's jacket, they threw in another lift, and wound up ninth.
The only evidence of the miscue was the giant hole in her tights.
Although the sport requires tremendous athleticism, figure skating is, at the end of the day, a show. The best skaters are great actors because they make what they're doing look easy.
Olympians perform spectacularly difficult moves bedazzled in Swarovski crystals, feathers, bridal lace, netting, and rhinestones.
A typical skating dress for an Olympian can be covered in up to 40,000 beads and cost up to $US5,000 ($A5,554).
Nancy Kerrigan's dress in the 1994 Olympics was designed by Vera Wang, had 14,500 crystals and cost $As,000 ($A14,442).
Sochi has already seen its fair share of eye-catching costumes.
German pairs skater Aliona Savchenko became an internet sensation with her bejeweled Pink Panther body suit.
German ice dancing duo Nelli Zhiganshina and Alexander Gazsi, who have dressed as clowns and zombies in the past, raised eyebrows again this week.
Gazsi took the ice as a nerdy professor, in black-rimmed glasses, a sweater vest and a bowtie. Zhiganshina played the part of a flirtatious socialite, in a fancy gold and white frock.
Australian ice dancers Danielle O'Brien and Greg Merriman also went for a brightly coloured circus theme in their free dance.
Over the years, there have been many memorable costumes - and not all of them for good reason.
Who can forget gold medalist Ilia Kulik's costume at the 1998 Nagano Olympics? He wore a bright yellow costume covered with big brown splotches, drawing comparisons to a giraffe and a rotting banana.
In 2006, Stephane Lanbiel was mocked for his zebra outfit. And then there' Johnny Weir, who always went all out, the most famous his swan outfit resplendent with 8,000 rhinestones, feathers, a fishnet sleeve and a red glove.
But the award for the all-time worst outfit must surely go to the ill-advised and offensive "Aboriginal" outfits worn by Russians Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin at the 2010 European Championships.
As Paul Wylie, the 1992 Olympic silver medalist, once said: "Skating costumes are like toupees. You notice the really bad ones."
