A few people have asked me to explain more about making belly dance bra’s, so in this article I will go more into detail on how to change the straps and to  cover the bra with fabric.

Before you start on your new bra, make sure the cups are as sturdy as possible, if not, purchase another bra or use buckram to reinforce the bra. Buckram can be bought at the fabric store. A bra should not have any overflowing or oozing over the cups and back straps and should not ride up when you lift your arms. One of the most important parts is the construction of the bra starts with buying the perfect bra!

This is a picture of what parts of the bra need to be altered:

Here is a picture of a back strap replacement of the last costume I made:

I cut the back straps from a very sturdy cotton that has absolutely no strech in it. You can also use grosgrain ribbon (for shoulder straps) if you want or sturdy interfacing, but I always use heavy duty cotton. Of course it nees to be covered with fabric so it looks like a real belly dance costume bra and not like a lingerie bra.

If you want to know how big the back straps sound be, measure the brack straps of any bra while you are wearing it. Belly Dance back straps are longer that the usual ones on a lingerie bra because they need to overlap. If you are making a tribal fusion bra they need to be even longer so you can tie them instead of fastening them with hooks.

You can use the cut-off black straps from your bra to measure how wide they should be where they connect with your bra. Basically this is what they should look like: 

Once you have replaced the back straps (the shoulder straps you do later) you can decorate your bra. Some people find it easier to first cover the back straps before sewing them onto the bra. I personally like my bra’s to be as seamless as possible so I do it afterwards. On this picture you can see how I pinned the fabric on (in this case I used velvet ribbon as well):

Here I pinned some ribbon and beaded fringe on my bra:

Pinning the fabric on the bra is very important, you can still make changes, move it around etc. When you use fabrics that have a direction like velvet or fabric with a pattern,  do not forget to make sure it faces in the right direction!

Here is the finished version of the bra you see in this article:

The worst mistake I have made myself was with my first belly dance bra for a student recital. I had only ever seen a few real costumes and had pictures of belly dancers in Egypt in the 60’s, so I based the costume on that look. What I did wrong was keeping all the original straps and putting sequins on them. It looked hopelessly unprofessional.

The next article will be on embellishing techniques!