Nicole Simone wearing an Assiut Fusion Bra by Dawn Devine
Bras for Belly Dance Costuming Spring 2012
“Davina, What’s the best bra for making a belly dance costume?
The answer isn’t simple. There is no one single bra style that will fit and flatter everybody. Instead, you will have to get out to the stores and try bras on. When you go to shop for bras, take the kind of padding you would use in your bra and give it the stuff treatment. You might want to consider going up in cup size and down in band size. It’s common practice to remove the bra band, so the size is not as relevant, but if you are large busted, you might want to carry some bra extenders so you can try band sizes that are smaller than you would ordinarily wear. And remember – if you are shopping on line, don’t be afraid to return bras that aren’t working for you!
So, what features bra features should you look for? I always take these four things into consideration.
Underwires – Bras with sturdy underwires are more supportive.
Foam or padded cups – Bras that have substance will provide your costume with a sturdy base to stitch your embellishments to.
Coverage – Remember – this is a costume and not lingerie. You want to ensure that you have enough coverage to be comfortable in the public eye and with no risk of nipple exposure.
Budget – Buy the best you can afford – but don’t exceed your budget!
Here are a few of my current favorites to help you get started in your quest. Good Luck!
I’ve had my head down and my elbows up working on my next book, The Cloth of Egypt. Over the past few months, I’ve participated in some Bay Area performance. At each of these recent shows, I’ve made a point of wearing assiut, with the hopes of getting some lovely and useful photos of the event to use in the book. This photo, was taken by the talented photographer Alisha Westerfeld. This low-level shot really caught the glint of the assiut, but is, unfortunately, a bit too blurry for print.
However, I am pretty happy with the overall look of this picture! So I thought I would share a few details on how I created this look. My headdress base is a simple cotton turban made from a shawl rolled into a long tube and wrapped twice around my head and tucked. I topped this with my largest tiara.
This headdress is topped with an amazing assiut scarf. This long, narrow, and highly embellished scarf is modern assiut that I pounded, cleaned, and softened to achieve an almost vintage drape. To keep the assiut scarf in place, I used long pearl-tipped corsage pins strategically located to keep everything from moving throughout a high-energy cane dance.
Of course, this look began with my makeup. I was trying for a highly dramatic look, emphasizing my rather deep-set eyes to make them look very dark and intense. Using the tools over on the Polyvore website, I’ve constructed a “snapshot” of my makeup kit from that day. With the products pictured below, I created the look above. If you like the results, you might want to try some of these cosmetics for yourself.
I recently received this message over on FaceBook.
(You can find me here – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Davina-Dawn-Devine/84640936617)
Hi Davina, I bought a modern Assiut dress from a friend. It smells musty. How do I clean the poor dress? Thank you!!Much love, Parizadah
Rather than limit the response to just my friend or just to FaceBook, here’s my recommendations for cleaning modern Assiut.
Hope this comes in handy for you!
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Washing Modern Assiut
First – pound down the assiut. Use a rubber mallet and take a whack and beat the stitches flat. If it’s used, the former owner may have done this already – but assume she didn’t. If it’s brand new, this is an essential step. I like to use a wooden cutting board for this process. Don’t pound assiut on an unyielding surface such as concrete or the embroidery wire can cut the fibers. The goal of this process is to ensure that the stitches are as flat and secure as possible before laundering. It also makes the dress more comfortable and less scratchy to wear.
Next – place in a mesh lingerie bag and machine wash on delicate setting in warm water. Use gentle detergent or soap and a good fabric softener after the rince. Wash ALONE… many of these dresses don’t have colorfast dye – so – they run or crock. Remember, modern assiut is made of cotton – so it can take regular old detergent. Just keep it in a bag so the assiut mesh doesn’t catch on any moving parts and distort the garment.
Finally – Dry flat or hang dry on a very supportive hanger. Remember the mesh will stretch more when it’s wet. So laying flat is preferred. But if you have to hang it – hang it until dry and then fold it up and put it away. Do not store assiut in a hanging – gravity will pull the mesh out of shape. It’s best to store modern assiut rolled or loosely folded. Avoid creasing the fabric and potentially damaging the metal stitches.
Remember: For vintage assiut, only hand wash gently in specialty soap such as Eucalan, Forever New, Orvus or Restoration (Restoration is my favorite for vintage textiles) and ALWAYS dry flat.
Special Issues:
Does your dress have coins on it? No worries – use this same method of laundering. The washing machine will not damage coins, just be sure they are contained in a lingerie bag.
Does it have beads on it? Test the beads for color fastness. Some beads run or fade in laundry. If this is the case, then hand wash it with soap in a basin or tub.
Is it falling apart? If it has holes in it, or beaded parts that are coming apart – and you want to preserve as much as possible – then hand-wash in a basin or tub and lay flat to dry. When it’s clean and dry, take the time to mend it before wearing to avoid further damage.
If the dress is still musty after washing?
You can try one of these other techniques:
1 – Put in a plastic box with a highly scented candle or bar of soap – the scent will permeate the fibers.
2 – Lay/hang it in the sun – the sun has amazing cleaning powers.
3 – Hang it near incense and let the sent perfume the dress. This is an authentic method straight from the Middle East.
For fine washables - Eucalan
4 – Spritz with your signature scent.
5 – Make a sachet of baking soda and place it and the garment in a sealed plastic bag to absorb scent.
6 – Use a de-scenting product such as Fabreze(tm)
7 – Use a antibacterial product such as Endbac2(tm)
8 – Spritz with a solution of half water and half vodka – this is an old theater trick, and acts as an antibacterial.
And remember – these are all instructions for MODERN assiut. Do not use harsh products or methods on vintage assiut!
Here are links to places where I buy my specialty cleaning products:
Tribal Style Belly Dance Costuming modeled by Moria of Bellydance Super Stars
Belly Dance Fashion:
Bellydance Superstars
in AND magazine
Several of the featured performers with the Bellydance Super Stars troupe recently appeared in an article about belly dance costuming over in AND Magazine. Accompanied by a smoking hot collection of gorgeous photos of these talented dancers, the text of this brief article breaks belly dance fashion into two main categories, Oriental and Tribal. Although this breakdown might seem overly simplistic, it does reflect one of the great stylistic divides in the world of belly dance costume.
Oriental – This term, which I think is a great replacement for the now outmoded term “Cabaret” or the cumbersome “Show Girl,” features beads, sequins and rhinestones. The goal of this style is glitter and flash, shimmer and shine. For many people, this is the image that leaps to mind when you hear the word belly dance.
Tribal – Built on the same formula of bra, belt and skirt, the tribal style chooses heavy-metal embellishments pulled from a variety of old-world, indigenous cultures including coins, chains and jewelry components. Even though the term tribal is a relative newcomer in the belly dance world, this type of cultural pastiche has existed since the early part of the 20th century.
In my personal view of the belly dance world, I personally believe that in order to be more inclusive and have a more complete breakdown of costume and fashion, two more broad categories need to be added.
Ethnographic – Ethnographic or folkloric is an essential category of costuming which plays a vital role in the world of belly dance performance. Costumes in this category allow dancers to bring to the stage authentic presentations from distinct parts of the globe. Dancers wear ethnographic costuming to create a culturally specific story using regional movement, music and costume.
Fusion – This is a handy catch-all term that I would like to extricate from the exclusive domain of Tribal dancers and bring back into general use. Throughout the long history of belly dance in the US, dozens if not hundreds of costuming styles have been “fused” to bring different flavors and vibes to match any music or performance needs. From Bollywood-Fusion to Afro-Fusion, the whole world of fashion is used by designers to create a myriad of distinctive and unique styles.
The Bellydance Super Stars show is a well crafted piece of dance theater. It’s a show-girl show featuring beautiful star dancers, a lovely chorus line all clad in gorgeous costumes and dancing to fantastic Middle Eastern music. The show is structured to showcase the skill and beauty of belly dance at its highest, and most polished level. From early on in the Super Stars shows, the producers chose to contrast and highlight the Oriental vs. Tribal dichotomy.
Read the original article on AND that inspired this post here – and be sure to take a long look at the lovely photo album included with the piece. http://www.andmagazine.com/content/and_3605.php
I’m exceptionally pleased that Lacis in Berkeley, CA is launching an exhibition of assuit -assiut fabrics in their upstairs gallery throughout the month of March. Dozen of examples of vintage assiut shawls, clothing and related accessories will be on exhibit. As you can see from their promotional image to the right, there are both natural and black shawls, exhibited in a manner so you can see nearly the entire length of the cloth.
I’m making plans to head up there soon to check out what looks to be a fantastic exhibit.
If you cannot make it, visit their website and enjoy the digital slide show they have put up for view.
Visit the Laci's Museum website to view an amazing slideshow of vintage assiut fabrics.
And remember – these are all instructions for MODERN assiut. Do not use harsh products or methods on vintage assiut!
