The fabric you choose can make or break your dress – it can either highlight bumps and bulges, or help hide a tummy and create a smooth, stunning silhouette.
After over ten years of experience in making belly dance costumes, I know how the right fabric can smooth and shape your silhouette.
Today, I’ll walk you through the 4 key tips to choose the perfect fabric to flatter your shape and hide a tummy. Let’s get started!
4 Fabric Tips to Hide a Tummy
Tip #1. Color
The color of the fabric plays a huge role in how you look in your dress. Lighter colors tend to show bumps and bulges more. If you want to hide a tummy or any other bumps, choose a dark color.
Both right and left: Amara Belly Dance Dresses
But a dark color doesn’t have to be black. It can be navy blue, dark green, or burgundy.
Or if you don’t want the whole outfit to look dark and heavy, you can use these colors in the areas that you want to appear smaller decorate your outfit with lighter colors, or choose a design like this that shows your skin.
This dress design below is one of my favorites because it has a belly panel with nice curves which also help create an hourglass figure!
Tip #2. Sheen
Some fabrics are shiny and others are matte. Shiny fabric is great at highlighting bumps and bulges. I love this beige dress design, but when I’m in this beige dress with a little sheen, I need to suck in my stomach to hide it. So if you want to feel relaxed in your dress, it’s best to go for matte.
Right: Amara Belly Dance Dress, Left: Leyla Belly Dance Dress
And matte fabric doesn’t have to be plain or boring. It can be matte fabric with fun prints. Solid matte fabric gives you a nice, blank canvas to decorate with appliques and rhinestones.
Right: Hourglass Belly Dance Dress, Left: Aziza Baladi Dress
It’s a great idea to layer sparkly accessories to add sparkles too.
Tip #3. Texture
Additional texture like velvet and lace tends to hide the appearance of a tummy as well. This dark green fabric has a little fuzzy texture, and even though it has a little sheen, it does a good job in hiding my tummy.
This lace fabric doesn’t highlight my bumps much either. If you compare it with this red dress, which is a modification of the same pattern, you can see my tummy is highlighted more with the smooth fabric.
Both right and left: Amara Belly Dance Dresses
Tip #4. Thickness
Thicker fabric is better at hiding bumps too. Here’s an interesting example. This navy blue dress is shiny, so it could highlight my tummy. But I added a layer of lycra as a lining for this dress, which gave the dress more thickness. And it does a good job of smoothing out the bumps.
Compare it with this dress, which is a modification of the same pattern. This one is made with 1 layer of lycra, and my tummy shows more in this dress.
Both right and left: Leyla Belly Dance Dress
For your information, this lycra fabric was 260gsm (grams per square meter). This unit gsm indicates the weight of the fabric, which is an indicator of how thick the fabric is. You can check this number when you’re shopping online, but of course, it’s always best to buy a swatch or sample of the fabric you want to use first and check the thickness in person.
Like I said, these 2 dresses were made with the same pattern with some modifications. But because of the differences in color, sheen, texture, and thickness, they are quite different in the way they show or hide my tummy and other bumps. It’s quite incredible, right?
Both right and left: Leyla Belly Dance Dress
If you want to make any of the dresses you saw in this tutorial, you can find the tutorials below.
- Amara Belly Dance Dress Premium Course
- Aziza Baladi Belly Dance Dress Premium Course
- Hourglass Belly Dance Dress Premium Course
- Daria Mermaid Skirts Premium Course
- Leyla Belly Dance Dress Premium Course
- If you want to try ALL designs: All-Access Membership
So try using one or more of these tips next time you’re making a fitted dress or skirt and let me know how it goes!
And if you’re someone who wants to make better dance costumes, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter.
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P.S. Pin this on your decoration idea board 😉
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