Cabaret Costumes

	Note: Don't use front closure bras. That's just asking for trouble. 1. The Cups The first step is to cover a bra with a foam shell cup with the fabric you have chosen. Cut off the flimsy adjustable straps. You will replace them later. Drape a piece of fabric over the cup and pin it so that it comes over the inside edge of the cup and sew it down without letting the stitching show on the front. See the (unlined) red bra in the picture. Depending on the size of the cup, you may have to create a dart on the bottom half of the cup. To do this, pin the fabric tight over all the sides of the cup except the bottom. Pinch the excess fabric and fold it over so that there is a triangle of "doubled" fabric pointing from the bottom of the cup to the bust point. Sew it down along its edge. (see gold satin cup, left.) After you have embellished it, you can line the cups with felt (sewn on loosely to make it easy to change). If you are adding heavy decorations such as many rows of glass fringe or a coin mesh cover, you can reinforce the cups by lining them with buckram, which is a very stiff interfacing-like material.
	2a. The Back - Stretchy To cover the stretchy sides of the bra, measure your ribcage just under your bust and tie books together in a bunch that measures the same length around as your ribcage. Attach a length of fabric to the edge of the cups that is as long as the sides have to stretch to go around you. Flip the bra cups inside out, fasten the closures and put the bra on the books. This makes the sides stretch out exactly the way they will fit your body. Turn the fabric over the edges of the sides and stitch it down. If you go through the heavy elastic on the top and bottom of the sides of the bra without going through the fabric on the "good" side (facing the books) and only going through it on the side that faces you, the stitching won't show. Make sure that you don't pull the fabric so tightly over the sides that you can't fasten the bra. The side with the eyes for the hooks should gape slightly so that you can fit the side with the hooks inside the "sleeve" to fasten the bra. (See pictures to left.) A lot of people don't use this method, preferring to have stiff decorated panels on the sides, however I feel that a stretchy fit lets you breathe more easily when dancing and makes the piece much more comfortable.
	2b. The Back - Fixed Length, Straight Or Y-shaped Strap Cut off the stretchy sides of the bra that fasten in the back. Use either interfacing, buckram or a similarly sturdy material if you want to make a single, decorated strap that goeas straight across the back. It can either start wider where it's attached to the cup and narrow aas it goes farther along the back or be fixed width. You can do a central closure, where the straps overlap and fasten at your spine, or a side closure where the strap actually fastens on the inside of one of the cups so that the closure isn't seen. For a Y-shaped strap, (see red costume left) I use grosgrain ribbon covered with fabric or sequins. Do a straight strap closure that attaches near the bottom of the cups, but is reinforced by a shorter piece attached near the top of the cup which meets the main strap to make a Y shape. You could also attach all the straps at the clasp at the back (see gold satin, left). I usually use the original closure that came with the bra; I just cover and decorate it as well.
	3. Straps For straps, cut off the bra straps (usually flimsy) and cover lengths of grosgrain ribbon with fabric. Place the length of ribbon on the wrong side (the back) of the fabric. Fold over and pin (first 2 pictures with gold satin). Now to cover the ragged edge of the fabric, fold over the other side twice so that the cut edge is protected underneath the fold an pin down (3rd picture). Finish by trimming the ends, doing the double rolling fold on the two ends and pinning in place. Now you can sew the fabric to itself without going through the whole strap, so the stitches won't show on the outside. If you are a C cup or above, you shouldn't wear halters too often because it will put too much pressure on your neck. (Those curves are heavy!) Simply attach your covered ribbons in the same place the straps were originally in the front, but as close to the closure as possible in the back, to keep them from slipping off your shoulders. If you make a halter, I recommend making a closure with a dress hook to make one strap end lie flat on the other, with two snap fasteners for security. (See picture)

The Belt

	Dina, the Costume Goddess, has excellent advice on making a pattern for hip belts at http://www.shira.net/askcg.htm Once you've made the pattern on paper, trace out the shape on interfacing and cut it out. You may want to double the interfacing if it's lightweight. Now cover it with fabric - I pin the interfacing to my fabric on the "wrong" side and then roll over the edges and sew it down. Make the closure similar to that of the halter strap closure: use dress hooks to make the overlapping edge of the belt lie flat, and behind the hooks put snap fasteners for extra security. Now you are ready to decorate the costume and add fringe.
	When I add fringe, I like to have a line on the fabric to guide me. I measure out where the fringe should go and stick pins as markers. Then I use very big stitches to connect my pin measurements. This gives me a line to follow without marking the fabric. Since I like to add the embellishments like jewels and sequins before adding all the heavy fringe, the thread line also shows me exactly how much space I have to work with.
	If you decide to use Egyptian fringe, I highly recommend glueing the knots on the bottom of each strand (yes - every singe one) with a dab of clear nail polish. It holds up better, and doesn't take as long as one would think to finish.