Thread: Student outfits - the good the bad and the ugly!

My troupe leader/teacher has coined a phrase that I love and I think applies: "Trying to organize belly dancers is like herding cats...cute, sparkly jingly cats! ";) We recently had a long debate about getting a troupe costume, and it took FOREVER to agree on a color scheme and style. So its not just students that have this issue. You may need to sit your students down and tell them you have the option of wearing A (list costume) B or C for the group dance. I have watched videos on youtube of student groups dancing, and What I saw that I think worked the best was a black circle skirt, either plain or with a band of color at the bottom, a velvet choli top in a color of their choice and a hip scarf of their choice in a color that matched the top. (i.e black skirt with red trim, red velvet choli top, red hip scarf). Each student could pick their color. Just my two cents

Another suggestion is to let everyone wear what they want (or provide general guidelines) in one colour. ie: one person wears all blue, one person wears all red, etc. The overall effect of the different colours can be really great on stage. You could be a bit more specific, such as skirt, scarf, crop top, but leave the rest up to the individual.

My students and I all happened to turn up to class last night in black top/leotard and skirt/pants, each with a bright coloured hip scarf, each of a different colour. The overall effect was great (The Wiggles of bellydance)! You could add a same-colour cropped top and to make the outfits brighter.

Totally agree Josiane...Horrified!

As students, most have a full circle skirt/harem pants and hip scarf and these items tend to be common ground. What I''ve done in the past to bring a group together is combine these elements with simple black singlet/choli/t-shirt. And like Mamarama said if the dance is tight it looks great anyway.
one of fave group looks is similar to what Bea posted and very similar to my old troupe cossies, simple black long princess-cut dresses and coin hip scarf.

My own experience is similar to what's been mentioned on this thread -- I try to keep my students from spending a lot of money on recital costumes, some do, some don't. The past couple of years, I have had a group of beginners doing a short drum solo, costumed in basic black top with black skirt or pants and a colorful hip scarf; and a second beginner group doing a cute Turkish dance in Gypsy-ish full skirts (I have a big supply acquired over the years from eBay and lend them out) with a top of their choice (anything but a bra look) and a colorful hip scarf. (These were my costume decisions, non-negotiable.) Both of these groups looked great. My intermediates were also uniform, doing a cane dance in paillette dresses (which I can buy wholesale very cheaply) with a hip scarf.

My advanced beginners were dancing to a pop song (Hamada Helal) and I wasn't sure what inexpensive costume would look good. I also wanted these students to be happy on stage, so we just opened up a costume discussion and came to a group decision. We discussed cholis and skirts, but eventually decided that everyone should just wear what they wanted, ranging from gorgeous Egyptian bedlahs (since we're so close to the bellydancestore.biz) to the "my first costume" look to modified tribaret. It was a very mixed look, but they danced with complete confidence (yesssss!) and the crowd loved them, so the mix of costumes wasn't a problem at all. Oh, and my advanced students -- my largest class -- had to be split into three groups and all wore gorgeous bedlah -- again, because of the proximity of bellydancestore.biz. *

What I've learned is: every year I agonize over making my students spend money, and every year, somehow, it all works out fine. Also, a mix of some dances with uniform costumes, and some with a mix of costumes, works fine for my event. But this won't stop me from agonizing before the recital next year! ..l;,


* Check out the new website! (standard disclaimers -- I derive no benefit, I'm just thrilled to have hundreds of gorgeous costumes practically in my back yard!)

Have any of you seen the video uploaded to Bhuz by Cassiopeia. It's titled Tiger Lilies and has a good example of troupe costuming that could be adapted by students. They look really nice. Great choreo, too. I'm a big fan of Cassiopeia's work.

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

Another suggestion is to let everyone wear what they want (or provide general guidelines) in one colour. ie: one person wears all blue, one person wears all red, etc. The overall effect of the different colours can be really great on stage. You could be a bit more specific, such as skirt, scarf, crop top, but leave the rest up to the individual.

The professional troupe of which I am a member has done this very thing, and variations on it, several times. I've seen it done many times, and done very well, by other pro troupes as well as many student troupes.

For example, we've done everybody in different but all-one-color beaded bra/belt with color-matched skirt; the skirt was the same cut and fabric for everybody, just in a color to match the bra/belt set: 100% sequin, straight skirt with two slits. The multi-color thing looks really good! For those performances, I made the skirt and borrowed my troupe-mate's red bra/belt set 'cuz I didn't own red meself.

One of the goals of a group student performance is to give folks the opportunity to get out and dance, mostly for the fun of it! I would not force any student into a bedlah; it can be intimidating for some folks, not to mention expensive.

My student group, mentioned in an earlier post, that purchased matching L. Rose Designs tops and skirts, made their own decision to do that. I am always concerned about cost, especially for students who will not be going pro and/or who will not be dancing alot for the GP; we discussed different options. Had it been a larger group and anyone had a financial concern, we would not have done it.

For one student performance, we had a couple of "extra" participants -- folks who had not performed with us before and who were unlikely to do so again. The group wore its L. Rose outfits and I wasn't about to ask these ladies to shell out any dough for costumes. Since I wasn't dancing with them, I loaned one of the "extra" ladies my outfit; the second "extra" dancer wore my fabulous, lucious, "Marilyn Monroe" Egyptian dress which, happily, coordinates in color. As you might guess, the one wearing the "odd" costume was the one in the middle, to maintain visual symmetry.

I think what Perizaad posted earlier sums up how I feel about the subject: "The troupe I'm in very rarely wears the same thing, but we always make an effort to have a similar style. Eg, everyone wearing a similar skirt (straight or full), style of bra/belt (fancy bedlah, coin set, or simple choli/hip scarf)."

Like Perizaad wrote, for me, I think it's a relative cohesiveness of style that is most important, not a matchy-matchy look.

So, let's get out there and dance!

Deborah

Yeah, unless it's a special number for a special gig, I think the audience enjoys seeing the variety of personal expressions in the choices students make. I'd be more worried about cooch-flashing and such-like. But if the sense is that your students really want to be led, then suggesting a colour scheme and general style ( bootleg pants, sparkly scarf and halter-top, etc) that they can ( and should!) personalise would be fun and cute.

The solution that my group (undergrads/grads at university) was for the majority of group numbers to have a basic costume with a bottom of any floor-length skirt or black jazz pants and a hip scarf with coins. This was easy, as pretty much everyone had already purchased those items for practices, or had a skirt/pants like that already.

Tops were a little harder, as just saying "wear a black tank top", would have ended up looking very messy. We also wanted to be careful of budgets, both of individual dancers and of the club, and of the wide variety of body types within our group. The solution was to give dancers the option of buying their own top (and choosing size/style) or using one of the club's tops (choosing from the sizes/styles we already had)--we used L Rose's velvet choli tops (http://www.lrosedesigns.com/catalog/tops-cholibra.html), which come in three different lengths and are incredibly comfy and easy to care for.

It was admittedly a pain to coordinate so many tops (about 50 at one point!), but was well worth it, as there was a sense of uniformity, but everyone had a bit of personal flair at the same time, and everyone was happy with the options and prices.

A couple other suggestions to add to the many excellent ones here:
1. If you and your students don't sew, find someone who does. There are a lot of excellent vendors out there (i.e. eBay, swap pages here and on Tribe, etc.) that will custom sew harem pants, skirts, tops, veils, to your students' exact measurements and/or color preferences. I usually handle the troupe ordering process so the students pay me and I turn over a single payment and all the size/color info. over to the vendor. I have found some really excellent prices (plus a troupe discount) especially considering the items will really fit everyone (from my 5'1" dancers to my 5'8" dancers!). The costumes may not be terribly elaborate but good fitting clothes often have a more impressive impact than fancy ones that look too big/small on some of the dancers. The students also seem more confident performing in clothes that fit (go figure!).
2. Much like others have mentioned, decide which elements of the costume will match and which ones can be left up to the dancer's preference. For example, all of the students will wear black tribal skirts but each dancer has selected her favorite trim color/pattern.
3. Participation is optional. Many of my students now know 3 different choreographies. I suggested that they don't have to be in all 3 if they cannot afford 3 costumes (note: actually all 3 use some of the same costume separates so most dancers will have at least 2 out of the 3 costumes). If they just purchased an expensive bedlah, for example, and therefore can't afford to buy a tribal skirt right now, that's fine. They can perform a solo and then participate in the other 2 numbers. Everyone learns all of the dances, however, so they can always perform when and if they decide to buy the full costume. Everyone is an adult so I'm confident they can make these types of decisions without too much drama.

I hope it all works out well for you in the end. ..g.:

anyone can suggest any good online resources to buy student troupe costumes? skirts, tops, belts...

I like Mode Mystique for affordable skirts. They have a few tops I like, too.

www.lrosedesigns is the very best, IMO, if your students are willing to pay for custom work.

Originally Posted by amity166

Bah, is it just me that cringes with that? :(

I would never dream of telling my teacher what I am and am not willing to wear for a student recital. I don't even know if I have the option of a student recital but if I do, I fully expect to be told what the guidelines are for dress and if I don't want to follow them then I guess I won't preform. I can understand that you want them to be part of the decision making process but at a certain point you need to assert yourself as the instructor and give them guidelines to follow (fancy bras/belts stay at home) and give them areas within those guidelines that they can personalize such as color or what ever. Don't be afraid to take charge and cut out the demanding DIVA business.

ETA: I just re-read that and it sounded a little snarky. That was not intended. I have just had it up to my ears with students (not just bellydance) that are so disrespectful to teachers.

At the one and only student night I've performed in the most polished looking group were the advanced students...black top, black skirt, bright hip scarf. That's it! They looked dynamite. My group wore whatever color we wanted as long as we wore a Turkish vest, full skirt, and hip belt of some kind. We looked a little more 'interesting' but we had a great time! I wish we'd worn colors in the same range...reds, greens, blues, etc. It would have looked more uniform and would have photographed alot better.

Mode Mystique, lrose are great ones.
I have used Simply Stylish in the past as well, great prices, group discount as well. The fabric is very nice. She offered to send swatches also. Did not order from her this year as we made a different choice.
I do have my ladies who will be dancing for a couple festivals buy a costume. I kept the cost as low as possible. They know I try, because two of my daughters need the costumes as well so for every one they buy I buy two!
Some choose to do the festivals and some don't. Some are making the choice to learn some of the dances and are looking at doing them in the future when they want to buy the costume.
One little bit. Make sure you order something that a) will be available in the future (not a problem with lrose) or b) is so basic that you can find almost the same thing in the future.
You wouldn't want something that is unavailable and have new students enter the group later and have to rethink everything!
That being said, are we talking about a one time only costume? Or a costume you wish them to keep using again and again. If it's for a one time recital I would say black pants, simple. If you will keep doing this number over and over something better would be a better value.
And yes I have done the two daughters dancing 5 numbers each at $50 per costume, I could have retired by now!!!!..c::

The $50 costumes at a Ballet Studio by the way. I have the worlds biggest tutu collection, in DOUBLES!

My favourite is this group's basic costume. (They have others now, one of which is pictured in the top pic, but this is their standby.)

Abir's Dance Collective

See the bottom two pictures. Not all the dancers are pictured, but each has a top and skirt in a different colour of stretch velvet. The tops of the skirts are ruched and adorned in different ways. There are slight variations in the tops. Some of the other colours I've seen dancers in this group wearing are yellow, lime green, purple, etc., so there really is a gorgeous variety of lovely colours. The nice thing about their costumes is that when a new lady joins their group, it is easy to costume her just by finding some stretch velvet in an, as yet, unused colour.

What our group did last year was to have shades of blue. There were a few criteria--the skirt had to be stretch velvet with chiffon godets (is that a mermaid skirt?), with matching gauntlets and headband, but the rest was up to each dancer--either a cholir or bra and a hipscarf, or a bedlah. With mine, I made a little u-front vest out of the skirt material to wear with my bra, just to give me a little more coverage. One of the ladies was pregnant and chose to wear a belly-drape. The shades of blue varied from turquoise to powder to royal, but because the skirts were the same style, we looked pretty pulled together, I think, even though some were wearing bedlahs and some were wearing hips scarves.
http://www.bhuz.com/file/pic/gallery/thumb/9360.jpg
http://www.bhuz.com/file/pic/gallery/thumb/9358.jpg

Edited to add that I realize these don't meet the criteria of using things people already own, but if you can find some commonality, like a skirt or a colour, then they can use what they have along with it.

I would really love to post a picture, but I don't have permission from my students...the best costume at my last year's concert, was this: everyone could wear whatever they wanted, as long as it was in 'fiery' colours - red, orange, yellow, even hot pink. Usually I go for a more uniform look when costuming classes, but this class were so diverse in what they wanted to wear that I knew any style I decided on was going to cause mutiny. We ended up with performers in home-made bedlah and skirt, kaftan with hip scarf, harem pants with coin belt and choli top. And it worked superbly! Everyone felt comfortable in what they were wearing and the colours looked spectacular. Because there was a range of colours to choose from it also made it easier for students to use things they had or buy op-shop clothes and transform them.

Our performance troupe all have black harems in whatever fabric and style each dancer chooses and a black choli top with her choice of sleeves or none, trim or not, fabric, etc. A basic black coin scarf with either gold or silver. A beledi dress using the same pattern but dancers choice of fabric as long as it's in a bright jewel tone. Our troupe signature skirt is a patchwork silk and we each have a bright coloured halter and bright coloured hip scarf as well in dancer's colour choice. Gives us lots of options for mixing and matching. Those that can't sew can pay other troupe members to do so. We are also working on other group costumes but these are the basics for the troupe.

Hope this link works, it's our patchwork skirts in action.

Nancy McKenna | FacebookWell, this will take you to the photo but I don't know if it's the correct way to post a picture.

When I was a student my teacher as giving gudelines for costumes, black flare pants, coloured harem pants, straight skirt, circle skirt and matching veil... and for the belt and top, wear what you can make, aforth to buy ou borough as long as it suits you. At the recital everybody were all chating about how nice and original costumes were, bought or handmade giving ideas for your next one... Those exchange were fun !!!

And sometimes with the group, let's say we had a contemporary choregraphy, we looked at it together... black flared pants we can get, bought purple fringe skirt in bulk (40$/ everybody) and then for the top comments started "I only wear halter tops", " I'm 40DD, I can't wear those", "I need to cover my belly with stretch maks", "I'm belly dancing, don't want to cover my belly"... So we all agreed "free style purple top" any shade of purple, any style... Here's the result:


And some other time, I was the teacher in a multiple dance school and at the end of the year, there was all dances recital so I had to get uniform costumes with a budget of 40-60$CAN /per choreography, as my experence told me I asked everybody to bring black flared pants, their hipscarf with coins and we ordered an halter topw/coins from Missbellydance the matching their hipscarf/coins color. As it they were all beginners and were not all ready to show their belly, the top was long and everybody could wear their proper halter bra underneath. Public loved the rainbow effect and my students loved the idea that next time, they'll add up a circle skirt and keep building their costume as time goes by without breaking up their budget.

But I know the problem of group matchin becomes more when classes becomes more advanced, some bought Eman's pink, some don't know what Emans means, somebody just bought a Bella brown and want to show it, another one is dancing for pleasure and dont want to invest 500$ in a costume and even if she had the monney, she'd probably by a totally different style that suits her best with a zebra print...

I think there is only 3 easy solution:
-make everybody wear the same thing (or almost suiting their body type) but very low cost costume (not more than 75$) as ballet school
or
-give a theme or color guidelines and see what people come up with...
or, in the middle:
-get everybody a part of costume, all the same (as the purple fringe skirt ou the halter top in my exemple, could be a skirt from L.Rose) and let them dress around it with guidelines...

first pic the group wore cat suits from dahlal for a group number and fringe belts (ignore me in the back in the pink lol...and my instructor)


for this choreo, our instructor wanted us to wear any black costume. she's big on color coordination. we don't have any costumes that match exactly since money is usually an issue.

In our group, performing requires a certain level of dedication outside of a weekly class. Members of our performing group are members of a university-based club, and have to attend rehearsals plus at least one weekly class. They also have to purchase a costume from LRose Designs.

We have decided to go with one color for everyone (royal blue), but each dancer picks her own variation of half top and trumpet skirt. This allows students to pick something that works well with their figure. It hasn't been an issue so far, but a long top or body stocking would also be allowed for someone who didn't want to bare their midriff.

Each dancer wears a slightly different hipscarf in blue tones that the club owns. The club also owns silk veils that go with the costumes.

We also carefully check the dancers and their costume for proper fit. If the costumes need any adjustments, one of the group leaders does the adjustments. Fit is checked everytime there is a long interval between performances. If anyone has lost or gained weight we assist them with the proper adjustments.

Wow, Sedonia, that is a neat group, and nobody complains about blue in class!!!

Here are two of my troupe's costumes. The black was for a fusion routine and the blue (LRose) was for our Cabaret numbers. Both are really versitile.

You only need one coordinating guideline to look like a troupe; color, style, or whatever element you want across the board. Everything else about the costume can be left to the individual's creativity and budget, within reason.

Our troupe is in it for the fun and exercise. If I'm demanding they're all dressed alike then nobody's having fun, and they're going to give it up and lose the exercise.

Maybe think of it in terms of shapes. With my troupe, we often say "all circle skirts" or "all straight skirts" and as long as we're wearing the same shape, we look uniform despite the many colors being worn.

I love my moms beginner/intermediate student troupe. They took super cheap bras and belts and she made mermaid skirts, sleeves, and headbands out of a awesome red and silver paisley fabric and it looks GREAT! So professional. You can make almost any cheap costume look great with the right fabric and accessories to match.

I would say the most important thing with student costumes is having them all match no matter what the outfit is, it just doesn't look good if they dont.

YouTube - Habibi Ya Eni Dinah & Raqs Devadasi

I sometimes think that part of the problem stems from people who don't know how to coordinate large groups and keep budgets in mind. I love the idea of someone making coordinating skirts / gauntlets. One of my favorite ballets I did, we all wore matching skirts with different coloured leotards and sashes which matched the leotards. This created a very different look of each or us while also being very unified.

But this took someone who KNEW what they were doing. It could well have been a hot mess if the person in charge hadn't a clue.

{{{HUGS}}}