costume fun!

Being a costume designer and fashion lover I of course am enamoured with the costume side of Belly Dance. However, I don't yet have a costume that I would call 100% "stage ready". My goal is to slowly work on this, so that when the time comes to perform, I am ready to go and looking stellar.

Also, I have a little pet dream of having my own Etsy store with Belly Dance costumes and accessories... and maybe one day to have enough of a store to set up shop at festivals.

I just sent away for a couple patterns from this site:

http://scheherezadeimports.com/items/atira~39-s-fashions~35-/list.htm

I'm getting Nagwa’s Bra-Tops and Alviyah’s Turkish-Macedonian Vest. My intention is to use these patterns as a base for my own designs, since I feel like I need a bit of help to jump start the patterns.

Also, in thinking about the kind of look that I am striving for with my costumes I am a bit torn. I love the look of the neo-Victorian/ Steam Punk/ floofy ruffles and bloomers and bustles that every other tribal belly dancer in the universe is wearing right now... But that's just it, EVERYONE is wearing the same thing. It has gotten old.

Instinctively I am leaning towards a look that reminds me of 60s/70s hippie belly dance style. I've been combing the Internet and books to try and find a photo of what I mean exactly, and I have come up with no web photos of the look, but I did find an old picture of Bou-Saada in the Tribal Bible book that is exactly what I mean.
The look is earthy, yet traditionally Middle Eastern looking, and a bit flowy . The style is minus the overdone caberet style glitz, and instead includes earth tones, eithnic prints, and long hippie hair, of course. (I'm working on the hair)

How I'm going to execute this look, I'm not exactly sure yet! But I'll figure it out.

And speaking of Bou-Saada, how amazing would it be to live on a traveling belly dance tour bus for 10 years??

Bou-Saada practicing outside their tour bus:

Anyone got a spare school bus? Let's run away!