Do you have a beaded belt that needs an upgrade?
But not sure where to start?
Altering a heavily decorated belt can be quite overwhelming and intimidating.
But in this post, Chani, our alteration expert, will continue her 90s costume refurbishment project and show you how she approached this belt covered with beads and stones. Enjoy 🙂
In Part 1, I introduced this crazy, time-consuming project: refurbishing a ‘tired,’ well-loved (and therefore well worn!) costume I got from one of my teachers, Tina Enheduanna, who in turn had gotten it from her mentor, Nourhan Sharif. It was originally made in the 1990s by Shadia, a costume designer located in Boston. I have since reached out to Shadia and told her I was refurbishing the costume, which I think she really was tickled about.
The Belt
Once the gems on the bra were stabilized on the cups, I moved over to the belt. The top of it had the same treatment as the cups (gems circled by a row of bead strands) so I proceeded with the same stabilization.
As I did with the bra, the first thing I did to the belt was remove the free-hanging string beads which had been sewn on as the fringe.
In doing so, I discovered wonderful shapes created by the same strings of beads sewn flat to the belt. You can see from the photo the shapes left behind (I apologize for not having a photo of the belt before I did the deconstruction, but this all took place long before I knew I would be writing posts about it, and I was not documenting the project.) I really liked the shapes and was determined to bring them out even more as the design element of the costume.
You will note they are not particularly symmetrical. While I am very OCD, I also realize that, on a moving body, this will not be nearly as obvious as it is looking at the belt lying flat in a photo. This took a LOT of willpower to not ‘fix’ the asymmetry. And I do mean a lot. But I was becoming increasingly aware of how much time I was spending on the costume and felt it reasonable to draw the line somewhere. (And remember the galloping horse rule?) Also, by keeping the gems that Tina had added to each section, it helped mask the asymmetrical nature of the shapes.
Where needed, I added new stitching to the bead strands to secure them. In retrospect, I should have made any repairs to the base fabric at this point; instead, I did it when the costume was nearly done and I realized how fabulous it was going to be.
Tip: if you deconstruct a costume and find the base fabric needs repairs, do it before you start any new embellishment. It will be much easier then, and save you some time.
At this point, I had removed the lining on the belt and bra; stabilized the gems and bead strands; removed the straps from the bra. The next thing I decided to do was add a line of string rhinestones to the bottom edge of the geometric shapes on the belt.
In my next post, I’ll show exactly how I sew on string rhinestones to get the nice, dense look on the belt. Stay tuned!
And Then. . .
At this point, I was probably six months into this project. I had continued to pick up trims and stuff when I would see things, unsure whether they would get used or not.
But one of the best things to happen is a friend gave me a red costume that she had, another costume with excellent juju: it had been owned by Amaya, a fellow New Mexican, and a much-respected dancer. I was unsure what parts of Amaya’s costume I would use, but it included amazing fringe and crocheted ‘sleeves’ that I knew I wanted to use with the Nourhan costume. All of these elements were kept in large zip lock bags and within reach when I worked on the costume.
Returning to The Bra
By adding the string rhinestones to the belt, I needed to return to the bra to do the same thing. I started to sew a line of string stones to the top of the bra only to discover that they were not going to sufficiently cover the places where the fabric had worn through to the green felt (see Nourhan Part 1).
However, I was so far in with sewing on the rhinestones, I did not want to rip them out in order to repair the fabric! (Big mistake; it took much longer to repair the fabric working around the rhinestones than it would have if I had done the fabric repairs first. There is always a learning curve, no matter how many costumes and how many years you have been doing this!)
This meant I had to attempt to match the fabric of the costume in order to patch it. I travel to New York City regularly and looked in several other places as well when I traveled, to no avail. I was not going to find anything similar. Instead, I bought a small piece of red fabric from which I could use the unembellished selvages for my repair fabric. I also discovered that if I used the wrong side of the same fabric, it matched well enough and the metallic dots did not show through.
I cut 1” wide strips of the selvage to use to repair the edges. I sewed the front first, using my strips as if they were four-fold bias tape. (This is a commercially produced trim that is a strip of fabric that is folded in half, and then the edges folded in again so there are no ‘raw’ edges showing.) I aligned one long cut edge of my mending fabric along the top of the bra and hand sewed a line of straight stitching about 3/8” from that edge. I sewed along the entire top of the bra to create consistency of color and texture.
While this is the bottom edge of the bra, you can see the technique. I have lined up the cut edge of my repair strip along the bottom edge of the bra and am stitching about 3/8” in using a basic straight stitch. The ‘dots’ are the wrong side of the repair fabric.
Once done, I folded the fabric up and over the top edge, and then basted it to the inside. I knew my lining would cover the raw edge of my repair fabric, so I did not need to fold under that cut edge.
Hand sewing my repair fabric over the top of the bra. You can see the dark green felt Shadia used to reinforce the costume when she made it in the 1990s. With my string rhinestones already sewn in place, I had to secure my repair fabric as close to them as possible.
Thankfully, I had not sewn any string rhinestones along the bottom of the costume yet and therefore was able to add repair fabric along the bottom edge, too, much more easily.
In the above photo, repair fabric and string rhinestones have been added to the top edge. Looking at the bottom edge, I realize it needs stabilizing and repair fabric, too.
I found more ‘wear and tear’ along the bottom edge of the bra’s back straps.
The top edge of the strap is done, and I have sewn the repair strip on the right side along the bottom edge. Now I will fold the repair fabric to the inside of the costume, and baste it in place.
The inside of one of the back straps, showing my repair fabric basted into place along the top and bottom of the costume.
Once all the edges were repaired on the bra, I resumed sewing on string rhinestones, stitching along the bottom of the bra embellishment. The back straps were easy as they matched the shapes on the belt. On the cups, I continued my outline stitching along the lower edge of the mardi gras beads.
If you look closely you can see the ‘dots’ on the right side of my repair fabric. Thankfully, the galloping horse rule wins again, and if you don’t look for them you won’t see them. It was more important to me that the feel and color of the repair fabric was a good match.
Hope you enjoyed Part 2 of the beaded belt refurbishment project by Chani! If you did, please share this post with your dance sisters 🙂
Don’t forget that next week Chani will be showing you how she sews on string rhinestones to get the nice, dense look on the belt.
If you’re curious about the tutorial and the rest of Chani’s 90s costume refurbishment project, make sure to sign up for the Sparkly Belly newsletter below so you won’t miss them!
Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!
P.S. Pin this image for your future reference 😉
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