I’m so pleased to announce that I’m running a Kickstarter Campaign for my upcoming book, The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut.
For the next seven days, you have the opportunity to join our collaborative team and become a book sponsor! For $25, you will get your name in the book on our Kickstarter/Sponsor page, and a copy of the finished book, signed by the authors!There are more levels to choose from if you would like to contribute a little more or less. Visit the Kickstarter website for complete details on the different premiums and pledge levels!
I’m a one woman shop and I wear a lot of hats. One of my least favorite hats to wear, (aside from bookkeeper, which just sucks) is that of book layout and production artist. I know, I could hire someone to do this, but since I’ve spent all my money buying assiut , vintage ephemera like photographs and maps, and all the supplies to make more than a dozen costumes, I’m pretty tapped out. What this means is that I will have to do all my own book production! If that sounds like complaining, it’s not, it’s just the name of the game when it comes to self publishing.
Before I start laying out the material for the book using inDesign, I go old school and storyboard the entire project. My approach is to work in “spreads” two pages at a time. To make this go quickly, I’ve devised a two-page template that I use to sketch and notate the details of each spread. I put these into a binder where I can effortlessly flip through the various pages and get a strong sense of what the final document will look like. Oh yes, and I always always use pencil. Once I have finished the entire book mock-up, I roll up my sleeves, grab a cup of coffee and fire up inDesign. Are you an self-published author? Check out my templates below.
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
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!
Free to subscribers of Costumer's Notes Monthly Newsletter - Sign up through November 30.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who helped me with getting my Costumer’s Notes Monthly Newsletter into production. Today it went out, with a coupon link to download a free coloring book! We will be sending out this newsletter throughout the entire month of November. If you haven’t signed up for Costumer’s Notes, all you have to do is put your email in the box at the top of the right column.
Once a week, throughout the month of November, we will send out the October edition of Costumer’s Notes with the link. On November 30, the coloring book will then be available for sale for as a downloadable .pdf for $2.95.
Thank you to the team that helped put this book into production.
Kristina Reinholds, graphic designer
Jerry Case, technical support, design and layout
Michael Hyde, editor
Jamie Hanrahan, editor
Joe Engledow, editor
Zemira/Alisha Westerfeld, creative consultant and model
Setareh, muse and model
Lulu, model
Without this team of talented and supportive individuals, neither this Belly Dance Costumes to Color Book or the Costumer’s Notes Newsletter would be here, and so much fun!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart ~ You’re all the best at what you do, and I’m so happy and proud to be working with each and everyone of you!
And thank you to my readers too! I hope you enjoy the coloring book!
