Thread: Bra fabric

Hello ^^

I was wondering what was the fabric bellydance designer use to create their bra.

Thankx ;)

Personally, I prefer to use stretch fabrics for making bras, because it's a little more forgiving of small mistakes than woven non-stretch fabric.

For the base, I use ordinary, stiff molded cup bras that fit well. Some people recommend going up a cup size, because decorations can "shrink" the cup size a bit if the threads are pulled tight. Re enforcing the cup edges with plastic needlepoint canvas helps limit cup shrinkage.

Because I'm not much of a beader, I always choose fabrics with shine or sparkle or nice pattern already on them, like metallic brocades or iridescent laces. The stuff you usually find in bridal/formal fabric sections. For me it reduces the work on the backend. For whatever reason, I tend to prefer non-stretch fabrics when covering a bra, I seem to have better luck with that. But think that's a personal preference.

I like using stretch fabrics when I can, mainly for ease of use. They are more forgiving than non-stretch, plus I can use it to cover the existing bra straps and still keep keep the stretch in them. Lately the bras I've been making don't have really extra heavy beading or coins that require the extra support, so I just cover the existing back straps with the fabric to save time and for comfort.
If I'm making something heavy like a coin bra I tend to stick to non-stretch materials for extra support.
I've been using a lot of stretch velvet and crushed panne lately.

Thanks for your aswers...
But, in fact, I wasn't wondering about the fabrics used to COVER the bra, but the basic material which is used to CREATE the cops. You know, it's a very strong and hard material.
I was used to buy a bra in H&M and then cover it with stretch fabric, but now I find it too soft. So, I was wondering what was the name of this hard material used by designers and where I can find it.
If somebody knows ....

Best wishes ;)

I like getting cups from Sugar Petals and covering the inside and out with a layer of stiff interfacing. Even covering regular bra cups with interfacing helps. I’ve never tried making my own cups though.

Ho, i'm very interesting in sugar's petals' cups?
What does it look like ? Do you have pictures ? Is it as hard as "real" costume bra ?

Here's the link: http://www.sugarpetals.com/bra_belt.asp

I'm a 34G/36F in normal bra sizes, and I recently made a costume with the largest size bra cups that Sugar Petals carries. It worked great for me :)

It's harder than 'normal bras' but not as stiff as costume bras. You should probably reinforce it if you plan to do a lot of beading.

Here's a pic of the bra as a 'work in progress' before finishing the beading and the final fitting and a little bit of padding for extra oomph... unfortunately, I left the cossie at my mom's house when I was visiting the US, and I don't have any final pics :(

My experience is that most Egyptian and Turkish costume makers use buckram the mold their cups. Difficult and time consuming for most of us to do. I tend to use hard cup bras from places like Target and Walmart. I do little to actually reinforce the actual bra, I cut off all the straps and change them after I cover it with fabric. This will generally be strong enough for most beading / embellishments. Others find it helpful to reinforce with many different fabrics: commercially avail interfacing or denim are two preferences.

Hope that helps.

{{{HUGS}}}

I'm a DD so I need to be sure my bra has lots of support! I use a bra of my own that is no longer wearable for everyday wear and cut the straps off the shoulders and across the back. Then I cover with a stretch fabric - my preferred fabric is panne velvet. It covers large cups fairly easily, is VERY forgiving when it comes to making it fit over a rounded surface (making pleats to fit properly) and it looks great under the light when performing. Once I've got the bra foundation covered I will then add straps of a different fabric. Good luck!

Here's a top that I made with Sugar Petals cups. The cups were actually too small her, so I added an 1" or so of fabric reinforced with interfacing to the top.