Davina: DIY Belly Dance Costume Queen Dawn Devine – 071

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Author of 22+ belly dance costuming books, Dawn Devine talks about current belly dance fashion trends in Egypt and Turkey, how to make assuit fabric feel good on your skin, and how to get more out of your belly dance costumes.

Alicia Free: I just don’t know where to begin with Dawn Devine aka Davina! She has created so many costume-creating resources for our dance community and influenced many of our costumes. I remember borrowing the book “From Turban to Toe Ring” from my first belly dance teacher, June Seaney of Ithaca. It came out in 2000, which was the year I started dancing and started making my own belly dance costumes. That book is still precious to me.

Dawn started belly dancing in the 80s as a teen. 22+ books later, it is an honor to have Dawn on A Little Lighter! On your website Davina.us, you wrote “My mission in life is to help people make beautiful, well designed, perfectly fitting costumes.” 

You are a Do-it-yourself queen! You have taught so many of us how to make our own costumes with your books, articles, videos, and Instagram posts. 

We love hearing about Danceable Rituals in this podcast. I heard you say in the interview on Belly Dance Geek Clubhouse that you go from Dawn to Devina when you put your false eyelashes on. Tell us more about your whole process of putting a costume on.

How Makeup Helps us Transform into Glamorous Belly Dancers

For me, the ritual starts with the makeup way before the hair, the costume, the jewelry, and all of the other layers in that five layer system. I always think of layer #2, the makeup, as being the real important transformative moment.

Putting makeup on is the real transformative moment.

https://www.davina.us/blog/2018/11/belly-dance-makeup-info/

Once my makeup is on then I’m not slouching as much, and I’m getting into the mindset.

I’m listening to my set for the night or if it’s live music, something similar in vibe, or maybe a recording by the band that I’m dancing to, even if it’s not the specific piece. So there’s that make-up moment.

That is where I enter as Dawn and I exit as Davina.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_r-EqMl0tsE&feature=share&utm_source=EKLEiJECCKjOmKnC5IiRIQ

It’s that, moment of music and paint and looking at myself in the mirror and, you know, making love to my eyes as I brush on the different layers of warpaint. I’m such a drag queen. And of course I don’t wear my costume to events. Usually I usually get there and change in the back of my car, you know, out of my trunk, digging around like a fiend. Not glamorous at all, but totally keeping it real!

Find Your Dance Mom

So I started off in fashion school and this was an associates degree in a, fashion program in San Diego, California. And I wanted to make every outfit in my classes belly dance costumes. And they were like, no. Dawn, this is a fashion program. You can’t just make belly dance costumes. Well, it came to the attention of my faculty advisor that I was a problem child. And she sent me to a new faculty advisor whose name was Margie.

When I walked into Margie’s office, she had a wall devoted to belly dance. And she’s like, you’re here because you’re a belly dancer. And I’m a belly dance instructor when I’m not here being an academic advisor. Let’s get you out of here and to, UCSB, which is where I got my BA.

And of course I started taking belly dance classes with her. So she became my dance mom. I was able to channel my love of belly dance costumes into a new facet, a new age of my belly dance career. And I was able to focus on the curriculum.

So I think that, that was my most memorable moment when I was still 17. I met my dance mom, and I started dancing professionally in San Diego. Again, not the best dancing on the planet, but everyone’s got to start somewhere. So that was it, finding my dance mom in fashion school.

Go Out Clubbing and Find Your Belly Dance Students

In San Diego, during the heyday of my professional belly dance career, going out dancing and nightclubs earned me a lot of dance students.

I started teaching after I got to UCSD and I founded a belly dance club on campus. And we would go to a nightclub, we were 21, and we would dance and then I would get students. My number one way of acquiring students was dancing informally in nightclubs, not at restaurants. At restaurants, I was the low girl on the totem pole, but at the nightclub, I was the hottest thing.

The Ouzo Dance

https://youtu.be/66g_ySXCHxA?t=347

Because I primarily danced at Greek restaurants, I got to do the ouzo dance on a regular basis. I’ve never seen it anywhere else other than in five restaurants in San Diego in the nineties.

So the ouzo dance involved, dancing around the restaurant with a waiter behind me selling glasses of ouzo. I had a glass of ouzo on my head, so then we’d get to the middle of this tiny dance floor. We’d put our ouzo glasses on the ground and we would literally lay on the ground like a harbor seal and take the glass between our teeth and shoot it. I had a real glass, but their glasses were like the medicine cups that come on cough syrup. You get your teeth on in and you’d shoot it.  And so that was like the halftime entertainment that we would do in the middle of the dance show.

There was a lot of dance at Greek restaurants before. Now there’s more hookah bar dancing and more Persian and middle Eastern dancing in San Diego.

Current Belly Dance Fashion Trends

Alicia: What are the fashion trends you are seeing in our worldwide belly dance community these days? 

In Egypt right now, what the current elite dancers are wearing falls into two categories: a native Egyptian style with bike shorts with thinner, straighter skirts, much higher waisted, in that sort of 1950s movie style, and the Russian influenced style with lace.

Current Native Egyptian Style Belly Dance Costumes: Bike Shorts and Thigh Decor

For the native Egyptian style, in addition to bike shorts, you see a lot of strappy things on your legs like garters or head dresses that are being worn on the upper thigh. You see a lot of attention being drawn with jewelry or rhinestones, to the upper thigh area.

And of course the Dina bra, which isn’t actually a supportive garment, so it’s kind of teaser, right? Dina can wear them because it basically pops onto her synthetic breasts. The bra itself isn’t really a viable bra for women who have more naturalistic, not gravity-defying breasts.

https://www.sparklybelly.com/things-i-wish-someone-told-me-before-i-bought-my-first-dina-bra/

I think the Dina bra trend is going to turn because it’s becoming clear that these Dina bras style costumes are only good for people below a certain age, whether their bust tissue is nice and firm or people have enhancements.

If your costume fits well and is in good repair, your bra won’t come open on accident. That is part of why I have written costuming books! I don’t want that to happen.

Russian Influenced Lace in Belly Dance Costumes in Egypt Now

The other style that’s happening in Egypt is this Russian influenced the style using lots of lace, using lots of stretchy materials and lots of rhinestones that basically enhance the figural quality of the lace.

And that really comes from this Russian Ukrainian, Eastern European design aesthetic. And because we have a lot of dancers from that area currently operating professionally in Egypt.

Ruffle Full Skirt with Horse Hair Braid

And then I think another sub trend is that real, ruffly skirt with horse hair braid in it. That’s an influence that comes  the south American dancers who are dancing in Egypt. Some dancers are bringing the flavor of flamenco and Spanish dancing, and that is a trend as well. So you’ve got these Russian styles, and you’ve got this giant voluminous, skirt style.

Current Belly Dance Fashion in Turkey: Didem and Nude Illusions

Didem from Turkey is also an enhanced dancer. Her bras tend to be very small, non-supportive so basically a covering rather than a supportive. In Turkey, Didem is really leading the Turkish dance scene, and consequently the styles.

And she’s really doing the reflective bra and belts paired with nude color skirts and nude color costume accessories. When performing in a dark environment, it looks very naked. She’s doing it by using those nude illusion fabrics and soft gold Champaign colors paired with metallic or rhinestone brown belt sets.

Faux Assuit: Adding a Layer of Comfort

I’m always hoping for a resurgence in assuit. I want to see more assuit costumes because I’m obsessed. We want what we want.

https://www.amazon.com/Cloth-Egypt-About-Assiut-Assuit/dp/069227054X/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1522618095&sr=8-1&keywords=the+cloth+of+egypt+by+dawn+devine&linkCode=li2&tag=dawndevine-20&linkId=174ca50443e0ef97c9c3bced4d2b9e2c

Alicia: And I love assuit. The real assuit. I love 1920s. That stuff is so gorgeous, but I think they’re doing a really good job with a lot of the different a suit prints, when you’re at a distance, oh, it’s gorgeous.

And they’re comfortable to wear. I have a