Thread: Tribal Bra Revamp

Okay, so...help? I am redoing my "ATS" coin bra that I picked up years ago. I hardly wore it because it was a bunch of coins sewed onto shapeless, over-padded bra with non-supportive straps. Basically, it looked awful on.

Ultimate ATS Tribal Velvet BRA Belly Dance 804w8 sizeCD - eBay (item 220541683447 end time Jan-21-10 15:19:40 PST)
(Looks like that sort of)

Anyways, I'm Renn Faire dancing next weekend and decided to transfer the coins and kuchi bits to a regular bra. It looks great, but the cups are now so weighed down. I haven't sewn the straps back on, but I'm doing criss cross in the back.

What can I do to stiffen the bra cup as a quick fix? I don't want droopage while I'm wearing the thing. I don't have experience with this sort of thing because my bras are never all that heavy. I was going to line it in felt, but I don't see how that will make much of a difference. What about fabric stiffener? A layer of glue?

A great, easy way to stiffen the bra is to sew some boning in it. Sew it from halfway down the underwire to the middle of the bra and then across it to form a T-shape. Plastic boning is easy to work with, and then just line it with the felt. Let me know if you want pictures. I'm working on doing that with a bra right now.

I'd be afraid to use fabric stiffener if the embellishments are already on. You'd need to saturate the fabric, but you wouldn't want it seeping through and gunking up the pieces on the front. Someone said that those hard-cup Dina bras are actually backed with a liberal globbing of hot glue, but again, it would probably be difficult to get the stiffening and shape you want without taking the embellishments off first. If you don't want to use boning, would there be room to sneak a thin cup form into the bra that you could stiffen separately before attaching?

Line with the thickest grade of Pellon. That will work in a pinch and it's easy to work with.

btw if anyone w/ smallish boobish is interested, I still have a lot of 3 excellently constructed strapless, boned bras for costume fabrication...

I have hotglued a stiff cup into a Walmart bra before sewing a coin bra cover onto it. It works OK, and the result has a nice firmness and shape to it, I feel it is a very good choice for what I tried to do (quickly, too). But, I wouldn't want to sew through these layers, the few spots where I needed to force the needle through glue were a major hassle.

Fabric stiffener is not gonna do the job for heavy coins, I'd think. I tried it, and it feels more like a concentrated fabric starch solution.

Question: what kind of bra did you use as a base when you remade your bra? Was it a hard cup or soft cup?

If it was a soft cup, mount that sucker over a hard cup bra, add and adjust straps and you should be good to go. In fact, this is a great way to handle things when you have a bra which is too small and you don't want to go to all the trouble of removing it from one to another.

If it is on a hard cup bra, I'd wait until you have the straps on to decide if you need to add any boning, etc. Sometimes I have been pleasantly surprised when I got a bra on which I *KNEW* wasn't going to fit, etc.

{{{HUGS}}}

I had a plain hard bra that came with a Pharonics of Egypt naked dress. I use a matching lingerie bra under the naked dress and used the hard bra to attach my real coin bra to.

There are no true "hard shell" or "hard cup" bras in most department stores, lingerie stores, walmart, etc. anymore. There is only foam cups in varying degrees of firmness, none of which are hard enough to properly support heavy coins IMHO.

You will have to use boning, buckram, or sew hard cups into a bra. It will probably be a major project.

I use plastic needlepoint canvas to reinforce bra cups. Sometimes all that's needed is a strip along the top inside of the cup. But if the decorations are really heavy, it might be necessary to line the entire cup.

My tribal coin bra is on a regular under wire bra. It is heavy and when it's off it lays funny but when it's on there's no drooping. I'm sure once you put the straps on and put it on it will fit and lay just fine.

I do use boning for heavy coined bras; I have how-tos illustrated in Costume Goddess Book 3, Cabaret Belt & Bra, nd the new Book 5, Tribal Vibes.

The kind of boning that comes inside a cotton bias sheath is easiest for me.

I cut a piece of boning in its sheath about an inch longer than I need to go across the center of the cup.

I take out the plastic strip, sew the long edges of the sheath to the inside of the bra or lining - across the center of the cup horizontally - leaving an extra half-inch or so extending on each end.

Then I slip the plastic (trimmed an inch) back in. I fold over the extra fabric on the ends, and finish neatly, so it can't move or poke out.

I only use a B cup though, a bigger one might need boning going in the other direction too.

I also reinforce the straps and might add an extra strap to support whatever area seems to be sagging, usually towards the center.

Another 'quick fix' you can try is to make sure the straps are grosgrain and that you reinforce all the top edges of the bra with grosgrain. This provides a lot of stability. Also, try to prevent as much flopping around of the ornaments as possible - it causes a lot of stress on the bra and contributes to shapelessness. Stitch as many things down as possible without distorting desired natural movement.

This is a really helpful thread. Nitewindz do you attach the nedlepoint canvas to the outside or inside of the cups?