Glitter & Gold - DIY Troupe Costuming

When creating troupe costuming, especially with a new troupe, it's a good idea to use neutral colors, like gold, black, silver, or copper.  I was building my troupe with my students in the classes I taught and I wanted us to have something classic which we could re-use at other events.  We decided to go with gold stretch velvet for our skirts.  That way we could mix and match our bedlah (bras & belts) or choli tops and hip scarves.  

I held a sewing workshop or "sewcial" at my home for some of my students and we planned about a month in advance before an upcoming performance at a local belly dance swap meet, where we would debut our costumes.

I had been a longtime follower of Mao Murakami's awesome costuming blog, SparklyBelly, and I offered to help my students make their own patterns so that we could make Mao's mermaid skirt and so that we could end up with a beautiful troupe costume where we all matched.  Three of my students joined me at the sewcial.

Armed with snacks, brown craft paper for drawing the pattern, rulers, tape measures, scissors, notebooks, pencils and some snacks, we all got together, and watched the videos, while helping each other measure to make our custom patterns.  

Each dancer made their own pattern by the end of our 3 hour sewcial.  I had already made my gold skirt, so I was able to show my students samples of what I did, including my pattern, the fabric and thread I used, and how it came out.  I also shared my other belly dance custom-made costumes that I created with my students, giving them inspiration and ideas.

I had already made several other projects from the Sparkly Belly blog on my own, including Mao's 10 minute Tribal Overskirt, and Easy Sleeveless Choli / Crop Top, the DIY LED (veil) wings, prop bag, and several of my own mermaid skirts using my custom mermaid skirt pattern that I drafted thanks to the blog.

We had a great time working on the custom patterns together, and then everyone went on a "field trip" to go get the gold crushed velvet fabric for our skirts.  

I used some additional scrap fabric I had to create Mao's shrug tutorial found here and one of my troupe mates made a Turkish choli type top to wear over her bra.

Although we ran out of time to actually sew that day, everyone finished their skirts in time for our upcoming show, and we wore them to perform at the swap meet a month later!  

They looked beautiful, and we were lucky enough to do an awesome 

photoshoot in our skirts that day at a gorgeous Banquet Hall after the show.

We were featured on Mao's blog in our troupe costumes, which we couldn't have made without her wonderful tutorials!  

special thanks to Signature Banquet Hall photo by L. Hall