Category: General

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Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance Design General

Bras for Belly Dance Costuming – Spring 2012

Nicole Simone
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!
Bras for Spring 2012

Bras for Spring 2012 by davinadevine featuring bras

Bra
barenecessities.com

Bra
$27 – maidenform.com

Bra
$39 – fredericks.com

bras
$18 – target.com

Men
$29 – kohls.com

Categories
Assiut/Assuit General Makeup and Appearance

What’s in your bag?

Davina, March 3, 2012
Davina, March 3, 2012

It’s in My Bag,

My Makeup Bag!

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.

My Makeup Bag - May, 2012

My Makeup Bag – May, 2012 by davinadevine featuring a cream skincare

Categories
Belly Dance Costuming DIY General Publications

Belly Dance Fashion – An article on AND magazine

Tribal Style Belly Dance Costuming
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

Find out more about the Bellydance Super Stars – http://www.bellydancesuperstars.com/

Oriental Style of Belly Dance Costume worn by Sefanya of Bellydance Super Stars

 

Categories
General Publications

Pinterest – Hot New Tool for Designers

One of my pin boards on the Pinterest website
One of my pin boards on the Pinterest website

Pinterest
Hot New Tool for Designers

One of my favorite design tools is the mood board or inspiration board. I routinely build collages that inform, inspire and delight the eye and fuel my own creative process. Recently, I went over to the new website, Pinterest and began to explore. What I have found, to my delight, is that it becomes a great digital mood board. As I surf the web, I simply hit a little button on my browser and “pin it”, select a photo from the page I’m looking at and it gets uploaded to one of Pinterest boards.  I can quickly collect visual information from dozens of sources, edit and arrange it into logical groupings, annotate the uploads and share them with my friends.  You can even upload your own images.  I recently started to collect images of Assiut/Assuit as I’ve been working on my new book.

I’m an avid magazine reader, and I’ve noticed that magazine editors, such as Nina Garcia and fashion bloggers such as Erica over at “PS I Made This,” have started adding some really well edited and useful content.  I’ve cruised this site and have found people planning weddings, decorating their homes or simply day dreaming about their dream wardrobe.  It’s fun, inspirational and easy to use.   Check it out!

~ Dawn
My Pinterest Profile 

Screenshot of my Pinterest profile
My Pinterest profile
Categories
Assiut/Assuit Belly Dance General

Assiut/Assuit in Motion – Liquid Silver

Assiut/Assuit in Motion – Liquid Silver

Apparently, I’m obsessed with assiut/assuit cloth.  Which is probably good, since I’m working on a book about this magical fabric.  However, several folks have sent me email queries along the lines of:

Hey Dawn, I’ve heard assiut/assuit referred to as “liquid silver” but when I
see assiut/assuit it looks quite stiff, can you explain?

Modern assiut/assuit can be quite stiff, and the patterns are often widely spaced upon the mesh ground cloth.  The modern fabric is made almost exclusively from short-staple cotton on modern machines which create smaller holes.  The stitches are fewer and further apart, giving this cloth a primarily black appearance.

In contrast, vintage assiut/assuit has a higher metal content and was made with finer linen fibers in a more open, looser mesh.  This allows the fabric to drape and move in a more supple way.  When this fabric is completely coated with individual metal stitches, it drapes heavily, conforming to the shape of the body beneath it, but maintaining the sheen and luster of metal.  The weight of the pounded metal in the cloth, gives the fabric a unique character during movement, that is better shown then described.  So below, I’ve assembled three videos, one modern and two that date to the 50’s, that show the unique movement and drape of heavily embroidered vintage assiut/assuit.