New costume / vintage style

Zorba

"The Veiled Male"
Love the fringe! Topside wouldn't do me any good, but the fringe on the waist is lovely.

That's about the right length too - I won't wear one of those "fringe skirts" or "fringe belts" anymore (Bad experience!), but this fringe is long without being dangerously so!
 

Suzanne Azhaar

Active member
Thank you Zorba! Wanted the fringe circumference asymmetrical. To me, it's more interesting; the eye travels to figure out the pattern.
 

Tourbeau

Active member
That's about the right length too - I won't wear one of those "fringe skirts" or "fringe belts" anymore (Bad experience!), but this fringe is long without being dangerously so!

Are you talking about those floor-length chainette fringe overskirts or long beaded fringe?

There used to be a clip of somebody (Amani or Samara on an old Lebanese television show?) wearing what was basically a short overskirt of solid fringe attached to a belt. I was always tempted to try making a belt with that long fringe (hers must have been about 16", all one length), but I wasn't sure how to stabilize that much weight and I was even more afraid that after I put in the time to make it, I wouldn't like it, since my least-favorite coin scarf was the long triangular one. (I kind of hated the sensation of stuff hitting me in the back of the knees and getting tangled around my legs as I danced).

On the other hand, we should be about due for somebody to try to revive that brief turn-of-the-last-century fad of chunks of scattered extra-long fringe strands accenting a belt. I can't remember if that was an Abla thing or a Bella thing and I'm too lazy to dig out my old Hadia tapes to see if she named the designer in the credits...
 

Shanazel

Moderator
If fringe is too long, it gets to have a lag time which irritates the heck out of me.

I'm waiting to hear the story behind the too long fringe and why Zorba won't use it any more.
 

Zorba

"The Veiled Male"
Are you talking about those floor-length chainette fringe overskirts or long beaded fringe?
The former. Belts on at the waist, and hangs to almost floor length. Really pretty...

But to answer Shanazel, the story goes like this:

I was dancing on the big stage at a big festival - this was many years ago, so I'm no longer sure what festival, but I *think* it was Carnival of Stars. In any event, I'm dancing in yellow harems with belt and vest - and a red fringe skirt. I was dancing Sa'idi cane - which was the beginning of this disaster. The bouncy, almost mincing Sa'idi steps led me to disaster, I twirled the cane forward, whacked it on the floor in front of me - while flipping one foot up in the rear...

Yep, toes got tangled in the darn thing, so I'm hopping around on the stage like a complete IDIOT, getting my toes untangled. It was a complete disaster, or as the kids today would say: an EPIC FAIL! :redface:

BUT WAIT! There's more!

Just on the off chance someone in the audience had missed seeing this wondrous display of skill and grace, a minute or so later I did it again facing the opposite direction with the opposite foot. :mad:

I promptly sold both of my fringe skirts off (other one was blue), and I haven't worn one since! :lol:
 
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Zorba

"The Veiled Male"
Maybe I should put this in a book: "Charlie Foxtrots and Other Stage Mishaps". I'll write that one just as soon as I'm done with the epic tome: "Dressing Rooms I Have Known"...
 

Tourbeau

Active member
If fringe is too long, it gets to have a lag time which irritates the heck out of me.

Same! This is the kind of little detail that rarely gets talked about in dance classes. Maybe it was more commonly discussed when long-fringe costumes were the norm? I didn't take my first class until '99, which was at the start of the modern Lycra-skirts-can't-handle-much-fringe era.

Teachers used to say that native dancers danced "behind the beat," meaning there was a very small, natural lag as they reacted to live music, as opposed to anticipating what the music was going to do and prepping to dance directly on the beat as dancers who worked primarily with prerecorded music tended to do. I had been practicing to develop the "behind" mindset, so I was kind of thrown when that troupe costume called for the long triangular scarf, which seemed to have its own opinions on when to hit the accents. I suppose I should have been diligent and pursued practicing how far ahead you need to start to be a little behind with other music after we retired that choreography and costume, but I just pushed the scarf to the back of my dance stash. My bad.

I was dancing on the big stage at a big festival...

So this problem could have been avoided with enclosed-toe dance shoes? You know, you could buy men's ballet flats and paint designs on them with metallic fabric or leather paints so they match your costumes. (hint: henna stencils)
 

Shanazel

Moderator
Along those same lines, I always let my students wear their coin scarves because those scarves made them feel pretty and dancer-like, but I hated the damned things. All those jingles clashing with each other when someone was out of step drove me nuts (I am easily driven nuts because it is such a short trip), but everyone was so happy with their fancy scarves that I didn't have the heart to ban them.
 

Zorba

"The Veiled Male"
Oh, the whole thing could have been avoided in any number of ways. But it wasn't, and I didn't. Its pretty obvious that I violated the first rule of performing: Always rehearse at least once wearing everything you're going on stage with! With that said, I'm not even sure shoes would have prevented this, but they might have made it less of a catastrophe! I don't like wearing shoes while dancing, but sometimes they're a necessary evil. Even Hermes sandals could have helped!
 
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