Beledi Dress

25 December, 2009 at 9:02 pm (belly dance) (beledi dress, belly dance, costume, dress, egyptian, gallabeya, saiidi)

After buying an Egyptian beledi dress second hand, I decided I wanted to try making my own. They seemed quite easy, as they’re basically a stretchy sheath dress, but it’s the embellishments that take the most time!

I chose this black stretch fabric with red pinstripe as I’d already got a black/white/silver one, and I love the colour combo of black/red/gold. I planned to use holographic gold sequins and paillettes to lift the colour. Stripes look great for these dresses as it emphasises the length rather than width!

I cut out a basic t-shirt shape (front, back, sleeve pieces) then added a dart at centre back for shape. The fabric’s stretch meant it was still form-fitting enough without too much shaping. I slit the sleeves to the elbow and the skirt up to just above the knee to allow for ease of movement, plus more edges for embellishing!

I used a facing to give the neckline some stability. the neckline trim is small sequinned appliques, 18mm AB Swarovski rivolis, a big pearshaped Swarovski at the bottom, and red and gold holographic sequin string to form the swirls.

The sleeve and skirt slits are edged with paillettes, strung with a sequin, 5 seed beads, paillette, 6 seed beads then through the fabric and stat again. This gives the paillettes room for movement when dancing.

The next step is covering a bra, which peeks out from the neckline keyhole. I only covered the cups of the bra, rather than all the straps, as these won’t be seen when wearing the dress. The fabric was hand stitched onto the bra, jut turned over to the inside.

Then another crystal and more sequin string was used to embellish where the bra could be seen. Done!