Thread: The life of a costume..

A while back I came across an old costume of mine at a haflah. It was nice to see it again and it brought back a few memories. I spoke to the new owner and she had recently purchased it for what I sold it for about 8 years ago.

I remember it had at least two owners in the local area after me and goodness knows how many others inbetween. It got me thinking about where the rest of my many sales went.

If these costumes keep circulating for 8 years or more, and new ones are being churned out by the dozen.. then where are they all?

Perhaps we should trace the life of a costume (or several) and write a book about them...like Toy Story with their own characters, voices and adventures..

OK, and now I will stop writing like I am high as a kite on something.. I have always had a vivid imagination. lol

I was thinking about the same thing recently. I was asked to adjust a costume and when it arrived I recognised it as one Id made smaller about 6 or 7 years ago. This time round I had to make it bigger and remove the really obvious nipple stones - which I'd wanted to do the first time it was brought to me.

It's not long history but I bought a DVD recently of UK performances and saw a pair fancy shimmyshop pants,I never wore, being worn by the Bhuzzer who bought them. Nice one! They looked lovely!
A dress made for me by Eman looks far better on the lovely young woman who bought it!
I do know that one of Mandy T's Shimmyshop creations has travelled all the way to San Francisco thanks to Bhuz.
It would be great to track the costumes I've sold on Bhuz and see where they've got to!

A few years ago I saw a picture of a local dancer wearing an old costume of mine, which I had sold to one of my students. I contacted her immediately to let her know the history of the costume. This was a special costume, made by a local dancer in the 1980's i believe. It had lovely beaded appliques from a vintage sweater and hand-strung fringe. The original owner is a Facebook friend, so when the current owner posted a picture there, i was able to show the costume creator that her costume lived on.

We've often said that there should be a label inside each costume where its history could be jotted down. Wouldn't that be fun?

There is always a story......I would read that "book". I'm sure there would be everything that's in a good book...some tears,heartache, laughter, and the joy of overcoming hardship, and yes, love! If those costume's could talk? I love to know the history of things. It makes me appreciate,respect, and treasure things more.

Oh, the stories some costumes could tell... I totally see some best-seller perspective here

Originally Posted by Safran

Oh, the stories some costumes could tell... I totally see some best-seller perspective here

title? Coming out - Caroline's Closet

Had a student bring over a costume in need of an adjustment. Opening the box, it felt like a dear old friend returning for a visit. I had originally purchased it in 2004 at Mahmoud's shop and gifted it to a friend. Without the student saying where she bought it, I was able to show photos of the original dancer in costume and tell her the story of how it came to the states. Lovely conversation.

Originally Posted by lplmuk

It's not long history but I bought a DVD recently of UK performances and saw a pair fancy shimmyshop pants,I never wore, being worn by the Bhuzzer who bought them. Nice one! They looked lovely!

I believe you might be talking about those fab mermaidy green ones that I bought from you - they were so long I had to cut off the bottoms, and there was so much material I had enough to make a headband and armbands - result!

And I was totally delighted to read this post yesterday...
http://www.bhuz.com/rest-belly-dance...ance-pics.html

as najla86 was wearing a bedlah I sold her a while back... Congratulations Najla!!!! x

Good heavens,YES!
I love the costumes with a "story"behind it!

Originally Posted by caroline_afifi

Perhaps we should trace the life of a costume (or several) and write a book about them...like Toy Story with their own characters, voices and adventures.

It could be a sequel to Sabrine!

Lol..

mm..it might be a bit off the wall for me.

I was the kid afraid of 'Alice In Wonderland' because it was too weird.

However, I might roll it around my brain for a while..

ok, I already have the part where the tearfull old heavy beaded fringed Mahmoud and Yasser costumes are yanked out of the closet to be sold and replaced by a brand new evil Eman!

...somebody stop me!

Having costumes with a history can be fun! Last summer I sold a Vintage Pharaonics to someone, who then sold it to Yolanda, who has sold it. I got it from Jody who got it from another SoCal dancer. The first 3 of us had it for a couple of years each.

I really want that costume back! ;-)

{{{HUGS}}}

Originally Posted by ukcaasi

I believe you might be talking about those fab mermaidy green ones that I bought from you - they were so long I had to cut off the bottoms, and there was so much material I had enough to make a headband and armbands - result!

And I was totally delighted to read this post yesterday...
http://www.bhuz.com/rest-belly-dance...ance-pics.html

as najla86 was wearing a bedlah I sold her a while back... Congratulations Najla!!!! x

yeah!!!! This is green belly dance in every way. Doing our bit for the world's resources..no bit of glitter wasted needlessly.

This is exactly the sort of thing I am trying to promote on my used costumes website Qamar Bazaar - Home

This is the opening paragraph:
New Costumes are wonderful. Of course! BUT- before there was the plethora of exquisite Egyptian and Turkish costumes available to the bellydance community, Costumes were usually handed "over" from Dancer to Dancer, creating a continuity of sorts, a bellydance costume history that you could proudly proclaim "so-and-so wore this costume!" The costumes here, although some indeed are new, most are being offered to the next dancer (You!) by other dancers, professionals and enthusiasts. Take part in a costume's history. Enjoy!

Each of the costumes belongs to one of the Austin area dancers, some well known, others not so much-but I'm trying to keep a record of who owned the costume and who it goes to so the "provenence" can be traced. Especially some of the vintage ones like the Pharaonics and other designers that have been around a while.

Originally Posted by bintbeled

We've often said that there should be a label inside each costume where its history could be jotted down. Wouldn't that be fun?

We should have a BookCrossing for costumes! Anyone who wanted to participate could request an ID number to put on a small label inside their costume. Then the costume could be looked up on an online database via the ID, and each new owner would have the option of adding to the costume's online journal.

It would be so interesting to know where some of these costumes have been!

Originally Posted by Ainsley

We should have a BookCrossing for costumes! Anyone who wanted to participate could request an ID number to put on a small label inside their costume. Then the costume could be looked up on an online database via the ID, and each new owner would have the option of adding to the costume's online journal.

It would be so interesting to know where some of these costumes have been!

This is a brilliant idea! I'm in.
I have so many vintage costumes that I would love to know more about. Where did they dance? Who wore them? What type of venues? Did they shimmy to live music? What year were they constructed. Who made them? What was the original price? Etc.
Gah, I'm such a dance nerd.

Funny that you posted this. I've actually thought about this recently with my own costumes. Some have good stories, others need to be developed. I've had my share of costume before joining bhuz, but just since joining bhuz the history of where costumes go is pretty fun and amazing sometimes. Our costumes travel the world (more than we do sometimes).

My friend has a vintage madam Abla which was purchased from Raqia Hassan at a workshop around 2001 (ish), it was sold onto my friend.

Raqia looks like she had kept it for a while and cleaned out her closet. It was the days before Ahlan and she was just appearing on the UK scene.

It has been gathering dust in my friends wardrobe for a few years now.
She was going to sell it but I stopped her because it is a vintage Abla. It weighs an absolute ton. I borrowed it for a vintage piece a few years ago (at the owners request) and could barely move in it.

Has anyone else got any genuine vintage pieces of which they know the history?
all of my own stuff is new except for one shimmy Shop piece I bought from Nawarra... soon to be moving on I think.

I like the idea of tracing costumes, but it would have to be simple easy and not very time consuming.. and done for fun of course.

Three of my costumes have a short history from... creator ...Candi...Me
A black Eman
A Sparkly gelebeya
..and a beautiful Abla set with a choli style top which ain't going anywhere even though I can't work out when I next would wear it! Not vintage maybe but anything Abla is like a treasure.

I like this thread!

So funny this topic came up - I was surfing ebay the other day, and one of my costumes is on there - with my original photos from the bhuz thread! It freaked me out to see my dance room floor in photos on ebay!

I bought it in Cairo, brought it to the US, sold it to someone in France, who then sold it to someone in Mexico, who is now selling it. (Hopefully, that person is exaggerating on their description - they claimed they paid $500 for it, but I sold it for $200!) I'm hoping someone from Asia buys it so it gathers more frequent flier miles!

I'm not very good with computers, but I would totally buy a journal for each of my costumes, to pass along with them when/if I ever part with one of them :)

Originally Posted by EliAnn

I'm not very good with computers, but I would totally buy a journal for each of my costumes, to pass along with them when/if I ever part with one of them :)

This is a cute idea! It would be nice to get a small notebook for each of the costumes.

The purple dress in my avatar made it's way back to me after almost eight years. I gave it away and it was left with another friend who surprised me with it when I desperately needed a baladi dress for a performance.