Do you have a bra and belt that need new lining?
In this post, Chani, our alteration expert, will complete her 90s costume refurbishment project and show you how she added fringe, then lining to the bra and belt for a very professional finish. Enjoy!
Phew! We have covered a lot of ground on this project: from simply figuring out where and how to start, to drilling holes on plastic gemstones, to figuring out how to spot repair the base fabric where it was worn through.
Now, in Part 3, I will finish the costume – at long last! In truth, I am thankful I did not know how time-consuming this costume repair would be. Many times along the way I pondered that it would have been faster to make a costume from scratch than refurbish this one. Two things kept me from giving up on it: the lineage and history of the costume; and the fact that I had already invested so much time and effort that I didn’t want to walk away from it.
Finishing the Belt: Fringe and Lining
I believe I mentioned in Part 1 that a friend had gifted me a red costume worn by another dancer. While the costume itself was not something I would wear, there were elements of it that I would put to great use on the Nourhan costume. One element was an amazing fringe with paillettes interspersed.
While I do not have photos of the entire process, I can walk you through the sequence for finishing the belt. This is a one-piece belt with no shaping so it was pretty simple to reline. (I will cover relining a variety of belt shapes in a dedicated blog post to come in the future.) Once all the repairs were done both to the base fabric and the gemstones, I had outlined the edges with string rhinestones to add a finishing element to it.
The entire belt was finished – the right side, that is – so it was time to sew on the fringe.
I had already carefully removed the fringe from the other red costume and was happy to find it in perfect shape. Also, it is typical of the vintage fringe where it was attached to a heavy cord, for lack of a better term. It was a little too long for the Nourhan belt. However, I knew that cutting the base cord might cause the fringe to start to come undone.
Starting at one end of the bottom of the belt, on the inside, I hand sewed the fringe to the bottom of the belt, following the contours and stitching close to the bottom through the cord and through all the fabric layers along the bottom of the belt.
The fringe is heavy; I wanted to make sure it was adequately sewn to the belt, and since I was using red thread and keeping my stitches small, I knew that they would not be noticeable from the right side of the costume. (Once again, the galloping horse rule wins!) On reaching the other end, I simply folded the extra fringe (about 1.5 inches) back on itself and stitched it down over the other fringe. The fringe is dense enough that it is not apparent that the fringe is doubled in that small section.
Now, the Lining…
When possible, I recommend removing and saving the old lining when you refurbish a costume as it may be usable to simply sew back in, or you can use it as a pattern for your new lining.
Since this belt does not have much shaping to it, it was easy to use a single piece of fabric to reline the belt. I laid the belt on the fabric, drew around it leaving a 1-2 inch margin, and after removing the belt from the fabric, cut along my pencil line. I then pinned the lining in, folding the margin to the inside. Next, I hand sewed the lining in place, starting along the top, then down one end, across the bottom (covering the cord of the fringe to make a neat lower edge), and then up the last end. I then hand-stitched, as promised, the Shadia label back in place at the center back of the belt.
Hooks N Bars
The last step was the stitch on hooks. I like to use flat skirt hooks on my costumes as they are substantial and lay flat. I refer to the receiving side as a ‘bar’ instead of an eye, as it is not curved like a traditional hook and eye. I also always try to sew at least two hooks in case one does come undone.
I was afraid the belt was nearly too small for me, but I was wrong. (As a matter of fact, I still need to move the hooks as I have discovered it is a little too loose! I wore it for a show, and it slipped while I danced. I am on the thinner side and have almost no hips, which makes keeping a heavy belt on a challenge. Hippy gals, relish them!)
I really like to make sure my hooks are secure, so I always stitch through the costume when sewing on hooks. It makes them harder to remove if you have to, but it also means you are less likely to suffer a Janet Jackson costume ‘malfunction’ while performing. (Remember that? Many, many years ago she was performing at the Superbowl halftime show – a really prestigious gig – and had a ‘costuming mishap,’ as the press kindly put it. We don’t need to relive that personally.) Since I don’t have much hip shape to help keep a heavy belt up, I do try to create a little tightness at the top of the belt by angling my hook placement.
In a future blog, we will talk about options for belt shapes when refurbishing a costume. For most women, a straight belt shape will not fit well (unless it is very narrow) and it is harder to keep it from slipping. There are options: you can pad the belt; you can take two-part belts apart and build in shaping, etc. We will come back to some of these concepts in our dedicated ‘Relining a Belt’ post – so stay tuned!
With this, the Nourhan belt was finished and ready to wear. Now the bra. . .
Straps and Finishing
First, I need to remake the straps. The original straps had been rows of mardi gras beads sewn side by side. I believe from grainy photos of Nourhan wearing the costume, that the straps were originally traditional over-the-shoulder straps. However, my guess is that they were too long for Tina, or she wanted to make it more interesting, so she had created a shape whereby the straps were moved to the outer edge of the cup on each side, and a separate band of beaded strap came up from the center of the bra and angled out to the main straps, to form a “v” over each cup.
I liked the overall idea, but the straps looked messy and worn, and in some places consisted of four rows of beads, in other places five. I knew I would have to make new straps from scratch.
I bought grosgrain ribbon for my base. It is good to use where you do not want the fabric to stretch. The way it is woven makes it strong and solid. It was too wide, so the first thing I did was fold it and stitch it to the desired width. Then, using the old straps for length, I stitched three rows of mardi gras beads to the length of the ribbon. I had intended to recreate the shape Tina had made, but when it came to sewing my new straps to the bra I could not get it to look right (that is one downside of grosgrain ribbon – because of the strong weave, it will not bend and mold as easily as fabric).
When I tried to create the dual straps coming up from the center, then angling out to meet the main straps, it looked messy and would not lie flat. So instead, I stitched the shorter lengths of the strap to crisscross above the center, and then extend out to the main straps.
In addition, I chose to make it a halter, instead of stitching the straps to the back of the bra. (You will note the halter is stitched shut instead of closed with hooks. I prefer to stitch mine since I can put it on easily overhead, and it is one less place for a costume mishap. I always leave sufficient overlap at the back of the neck in case I ever want to unsew it and add hooks, or in the advent, I sell the costume and the future owner needs to change the length.)
In sewing the straps on, I again always stitch through the bra all the way to the front for strength. Using red thread, and with the amount of embellishment, one would have to look hard to find the stitches that hold the straps on. . . and I like to know my straps will not come unstitched while dancing. Next, the lining!
Relining the Bra
I was unable to retain and use the old bra lining as a pattern. Some repairs that had been done on the outside were stitched through the original lining, and I felt it better to cut around those sections and leave that fabric in place when I removed the original lining. That being the case, I had to create a new one from scratch.
This too will be covered in a dedicated post about relining bras, but I will go over the basics here for this costume.
To start, I lay the back straps flat on my red lining fabric and, as I did for the belt, traced around it leaving myself about a 1” margin. Estimate the amount of fabric you will need to overlap into the cups; remember it is easy to cut the extra fabric away, so when in doubt leave more than enough.
Remove the bra, and cut two of that shape, one for each back strap.
Pin the lining in place. (My photo shows a combination of straight pins and safety pins as that is simply what I had on hand! I was at my daughter’s house, and since she does not sew and I had failed to bring pins, I had to make do with what I could find.) I like to start both the pinning and the stitching along what is the straightest edge of the garment; it is a good way to establish the positioning of the lining before you get to more complicated shapes such as curves.
None of these curves were significant enough to require clipping the turned under the fabric. (We will cover those elements in more detail in the dedicated bra relining post, to come). Stitch all the way around the top, the ends, and the bottom of the back straps. When you get to the underlap for the cup, you can just baste this in place with large stitches through the inside surface fabric.
Relining the Cups
This is where having the old lining to reuse or at least use for a pattern is really handy. But working ‘from scratch’ is possible; just be patient with yourself, go slow, and be ready to remove and re-pin your lining if necessary.
Once again, we will start with a straight edge. You can even use the selvage of the fabric, which can add stability to the top of the cup. While this may not be the easiest and most efficient use of fabric, I have found it very reliable for creating a cup lining without a pattern.
Place the bra on top of your fabric, and mark a LARGE rectangle around it. I do mean large; when we start folding fabric to make darts, you will need more fabric than you can imagine. Also, the larger the cups the deeper the folds for the darts, and the more fabric you will need. This may be a matter of trial and error for the first couple of times; make sure you purchase enough fabric.
DO NOT CUT your fabric yet. Instead, pin your folded straight edge along the top of the bra cup (assuming it is straight, as the Nourhan costume is; if it is shaped, that is another matter which we will cover in the dedicated post about relining bras). Once the top edge is pinned, you can see the folds of fabric you will need to make to fit the fabric into the three-dimensional shape of the cup.
Pin the straight edge of the fabric along the top of the cup, then pin down the sides. From there, you can start to manipulate and fold the fabric to fill in the cups.
Since I did not have a pattern for this, I actually hand-stitched the darts closed before stitching the lining in place to the bra. Do not remove it; simply stitch the darts while the lining is pinned to the bra. You do not need to stitch all the way through the costume, simply catch the edge of the fold forming the dart and stitch it down. Once the dart is finished, I do recommend taking a stitch or two at the point of the dart through to the costume; it does not need to be pulled tight but will keep the cup lining tucked into the cup.
(In tailoring parlance, this would be referred to as ‘tacking’ the lining to the costume. A stitch or two loosely holds the lining in place. Often a high-quality skirt lining will be tacked to the fashion fabric at the hem, so the lining doesn’t twist inside the skirt while you walk.)
Once the darts are sewn and the upper edge of the lining is pinned, you can now see where to cut the extra fabric from the lower edge. Cut with care as your lining is now attached to the costume. It would be awful to accidentally cut into your beautiful costume! I recommend cutting the lining with the costume facing up, so you can see more easily. Once the lower lining edge is cut, fold under and pin it into place. Now you can sew all the way around the cup.
On this costume, the small center band between the cups was covered by the cup linings. In the bra relining tutorial, we will look at Dinah bra shapes, and other bra shapes, where the center band must be covered with a dedicated lining strip.
Hooks and Bars
With the straps on and the lining done, the last step was to fit the bands for hooks and bars. This actually is something you can do without help!
Here is how. Sew your hooks to the side you want to have overlap. It doesn’t generally matter which side overlaps which; perhaps if you are right hand dominant it might be easier if your right side overlaps the left. Or you may determine which side has better embellishment. Assuming the back band is wide enough, I always stitch at least two hooks, and always stitch through to the right side of the costume for strength.
Once you have your hooks sewn on, thread a large, heavyweight safety pin on the other back strap, guessing at the amount of overlap the straps will have. Then, you can try on the costume, hooking it to the safety pin.
Remember when you go to sew on the bars, that the safety pin is laying on its side when you fit yourself; the bars need to be sewn where the side of the safety pin lay, not where the pin is inserted. Or, if it isn’t right, reposition the safety pin and refit until you are satisfied.
Whew! All done. This was a very big project. I am glad it is done, and am very gratified at the results.
Final thoughts: when I disassembled the second red costume for reuse on this one, I kept any elements that may be useful later, either to myself or a future owner of this costume. For instance, there was a shorter red fringe on the dismantled costume that I have held on to; it didn’t work to sew it to the bra, but I did not want to discard it (who knows, maybe later I will sew it on).
I also keep some of my repair elements in case I need them in the future: several strands of mardi gras beads, plastic gemstones, a piece of lining fabric. When these items don’t take up much room, I store them with the costume itself in its costume box. These items are too large for that, so I have placed them in a large ziplock bag stored in my sewing area. That way, I always have stuff on hand should I need to do more repairs in the future.
Do you have a costume that needs work, and you are unsure how to proceed? Shoot me a note at chani@sparklybelly.com. Please include as much detail as possible, include photos, and I will try to help you out. In the meantime, stitch on, dancers!
Hope you enjoyed Part 3 of the beaded bra & belt refurbishment project by Chani! If you did, please share this post with your dance sisters 🙂
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Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!
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