Author: Davina

Davina ~ Dawn Devine is a belly dance costume designer, dance instructor and author of more than a dozen publications on Middle Eastern dance.

Categories
Assiut/Assuit Design

Vintage Assiut Fix – Poster of Hedy Lamarr as Delilah

samson-and-delilah-hedy-lamarr-1949Need a dash of vintage assiut to decorate your room?  Cannot afford antique textiles?  Well, here’s a fantastic compromise, buy a poster!

In 1949, Hedy Lamarr starred in the film Sampson and Delilah, and wore a drop dead gorgeous assiut ensemble designed by Oscar award winning costumer, Edith Head. This dress made a stir at the time for its opulence, drape, and revealing midriff.

The website All Posters has this image of Hedy wearing her assiut wearing her two piece ensemble features an asymmetrical cropped top that has a long dramatic drape that drops from her right shoulder to the floor.  Her floor length skirt is pulled up just enough to showcase her vintage shoes.

Best of all, it comes complete with her signature sassy style, glamorous pose, and take no prisoners glare!

Hedy Lamarr as Delilah picture at All Posters starting at $16.99.  Click Here for more Info.

Categories
Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance Costuming DIY Publications

Book Report: The Cloth of Egypt Status – We’re Almost Done!

COE-Section2-2spreadsHello Gang!

The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut is nearing completion and I’m so happy to be closing in on the end of this project!    I’m in the final week of layouts.  Next step: Editing!   Right now, the book is sitting in that 250-260 page mark, each day that I work on the final layouts, it goes up a spread or down a spread depending on the flow of the content and images.  I think we’re four weeks from being absolutely complete!   The next phase of the book production includes sending the book out to our editors, collecting the edited documents, integrating edits into the final book, and then ordering proofs from the printer.  It’s a multi-week process and the end is definitely in sight!

The screen shots below represent 12 spreads taken at random from the four major sections of the book. As you can see, it’s filled with images that support the information. My co-author, Alisha Westerfeld has done an outstanding job with the bulk of the images, and along with a handful of extraordinarily talented photographers, this publication has become a visual delight.

Ultimately, I want this book to be a really good value when you pick it up!  I’m so very proud of how far I’ve come, and I’m looking forward to sharing the finished book with you soon!  At this point, the book release will be sometime between August 20 and Sept 15, depending on the speed of my editors, the efficiency of the proofing process with the printer, and as long as their are no major glitches, your copy will be available soon!

So enjoy this sneak peek!
Thanks for joining me on this adventure!

~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina

ps – Remember, you can email me if you have questions – davina@davina.us
pps – I’m really looking forward to getting back to blogging on a regular basis – I have so many projects to share with you that didn’t even MAKE it into the book.  As soon as we hit “print,” I’ll be back at work here on Costumer’s Notes!  Until then – Happy Costuming!  ~ D

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Section 1

Section 2

Section3

Section 4

Categories
Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance

Assiut Fest – Workshop and Dance Party

The end is so close – we’re planning the release party for The Cloth of Egypt: All About AssiutI’ve set up a page with more details, workshop info, links and more.  Click on the flyer below for more info!

Assiut-Fest-Flyer

Categories
Assiut/Assuit Publications

The End is In Sight! The book, The Cloth of Egypt nears completion!

Assiut-BlogPost-June2014Hello Gang!

When I started working intensively on “The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut,” I envisioned a 125-140 page book that reveled in the glory of this magnificent cloth.  Commonly called assiut (or one of its numerous alternative spellings including assuit, assiout, asyut, etc. etc.) but  known as tally, telli, or tilli in Egypt, throughout North Africa, and across the Middle East.  The book has grown – expanded to about 260 pages – thanks to the generosity of my backers over on Kickstarter!  They allowed me to purchase image rights and ephemera to illustrated the history chapter that blossomed from a mere 12 pages of text to a lavishly illustrated 60+ pages with historic images that tell the story of assiut cloth between 1900 and 1940.

I’m just a few images away from completing the layout of the book – and then I’m moving onto the painful process of placing the text and then making the final edits on the project.   We are now so close to publication, that I can taste it!   So I thought I would share a little taste with you.  I haven’t placed the words yet, but here are just a few of the spreads.  In these 10 pages, 5 spreads, you can get a sense of the layout, the quality of the images, and the general look.

Be sure to sign up for the mailing list.  When the book is completed, newsletter members will get a notification, and a discount code for purchasing the first 200 copies.

And now, I’m diving back into the layout process. Today it’s another 10 images of lovely dancers to crop, convert to black and white, adjust the contrast, and.. and.. and… With luck, the layout will be complete by this Friday!

I look forward to returning to blogging on a regular basis as soon as we hit send on the final version and it hits the presses!

Categories
Assiut/Assuit Publications

The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut – Status Update

 

59109cea5dea5073304261847e460090_largeI’ve been sooo busy working on my upcoming book, The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut that I’ve been let blogging slide for the moment.  However, I thought you might want to know how the book is progressing.  I recently posted a detailed breakdown of my current status over on the Kickstarter page – remember that campaign I ran last summer?  There was such an outpouring of support that I was able to invest the money in more research materials, ephemera, image rights, and sewing materials.  This has lead to a much more interesting and comprehensive book than I had initially described in my Kickstarter pitch video!

Read Kickstarter Update Here

My plan is to have the images and text laid into the master document by Mid-May, and final edits until done.   At this current production rate, I’ll be anticipate being finished by the end of June/early July.   I’m so committed to this timeline, that I’m scheduling a big book release party in August.    I look forward to resuming my regularly scheduled blogging activities in May when the book is in final edits!

I’ll be sending out my next newsletter end of April – so be sure to sign up for my mailing list!

Thank you for your continued interest and support!  ~ Dawn

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