WAXWORK smiles, hard-set hair, childhood memories of Angela Rippon and Come Dancing — it is not without a sense of anachronism that I go on one of the final practice sessions for tonight’s 51st International Ballroom Championships at the Albert Hall.

I am going to spend time with people who have earnest discussions about the merits of different fake tans; people whose own newspaper, Dance News, leads with a story about the safe return to its owner of a tracksuit top lost at a recent competiton.

When I arrive at the studio, five waltz couples are already twirling around like pairs of upturned tweezers. The room is walled almost entirely with mirrors, and it becomes immediately obvious that look is important.

Even for this practice session, the make-up is heavy, and rigorous self-maintenance, it seems, goes with the territory. When they step into the spotlight this evening, the women in the latin section will have spent the afternoon in a tanning shop — “sometimes cream, but mostly spray-on” — and most ballroom competitors will have personally studded their dresses with precious Swarovski stones from Austria.

At no small cost, either. The gowns can cost up to £3,000, and the men’s made-to-order tails around £1,700: this in a sport where the first prize at a top event is £2,000.

For beginners, individual lessons cost up to £60 for 45 minutes, and even assuming that you achieve competition standard there is the question of whether your ego can stand up to the sharp pieces of fashion advice that are regularly flung around: “I don’t like the dresses to be too sexy, too open,” says one Russian participant. “That,” he says, pointing to one plunging neckline, “is vulgar. Too much.” Later, a teacher points to a girl sporting a perfectly attractive quantity of midriff and shakes her head: “Look at that belly — hanging out everywhere. She’s not going to make it.”

Lorraine Reynolds, 65, a former world latin champion and teacher, will not hear a whiff of criticism of the sport’s exacting body politics. “Just look at us,” she says, gesturing around. “Look at the posture. Look at the beauty. It’s like a Versace parade.”

Plenty of people are won over, it seems. There are more than a quarter of a million amateur dancers in Britain, learning from 8,000 registered dance teachers in around 4,000 schools. The industry — which sells everything from rhinestones to eyelashes — is worth £100 million, and this year for the first time the sport can earn you a blue at Oxford.

But for Sergey Tokaremkeo, 24, from Moscow, who made the finals of the amateur latin last year, the appeal is beyond popularity. “It’s like when you have a good wine and you can still taste it afterwards. When you finish dancing, you can still feel it.” From the age of six, Sergey, together with his parents and the rest of his family, moved from town to town around Russia so that he could attend bigger and better studios. He arrived in Moscow four years ago and the next step is Britain — “the mecca”, he says — to train to become world champion.

Prezemk Lowicki, 22, from Poland, who is competing at his first international, puts it differently: “I look around at my friends and I feel good about what I do because I see they are bored and I am not. It sounds like a cliché, but dancing is my life. Everything I do, I think about how it will influence my dancing. Diet, friends, having fun, everything.”

I ask whether it helps with more basic things: I’ve been told by Peggy Spencer, former host of Come Dancing, that around 75 per cent of couples are involved off the dance floor. Sergey and his partner, Mira, it turns out, are brother and sister, but Prezemk and Jana Vokrovska, 20, from Russia, are an item. Once you’ve seen them lunge lustfully about, it’s not hard to understand why. They met at the British Open in May this year, ditched their partners, and a few “fallaway reverse” and “slip pivots” later, fell in love. Reynolds, who coaches them, says that despite the inevitable problems of jealousy, theirs makes for a better partnership than one between brother and sister, because a brother and sister “can’t have that last little . . .”

That last little . . . ?

“That last little . . . ”

“That last little” is a lot of what dancing is about. There is no technical disadvantage in a lack of genuine physical attraction between a couple, as evidenced by the number of gay men competing successfully. “But you couldn’t do this,” Reynolds says, running her hand down my cheek and drawing her head back in one of the faux-passionate gestures that are de rigueur, “to your brother.”

According to Christopher Hawkins, the British and world champion, this is precisely the angle the sport should be tapping into. “There are a lot of very attractive, fit young people who dance. The promoters should be thinking about that.

“If the BBC can do a snooker feature on Paul Hunter’s new haircut, imagine what it can do with the fashion and the beauty of dancing.”

Can ballroom dancing ever be sexy? E-mail debate@thetimes.co.uk