You can make a mask out of just about any kind of material, but for the purposes of this post, I’m going to be focusing on paper masks for several reasons: paper is 1) cheap, 2) readily available, 3) non-toxic, and 4) you don’t need special tools or knowledge to work with it. I am sticking to paper construction and am largely avoiding paper mache which starts to get into sculpture techniques.

Let’s begin with what is probably the first mask most of us ever made: the brown paper bag mask. Remember those old grocery bags, the ones you have to ask for specially now at the store? Those paper bags have come a long way since the cut-some-eyeholes-and-wear-the-bag-over-your-head-days. A paper bag mask can still be very simple, but they also have the potential to be very complex. You can draw an elaborate design on them or use the paper bag as a base for embellishments.

This 2010 paperbag mask was made by L.A. artist Freehand Profit as part of his mask-a-day project.

This impressive tiki mask was made by Donald Drennan in 2006. He created it out of brown paper glued over a cardboard structure and then painted. Here’s a  link to his page where he describes the process. Properly this mask qualifies as paper mache, but I thought it was too good to pass up.

Full fledged paper sculpture animal skull mask made by MoriChax for the Newgrounds Brown Paper Bag Mask contest. Posted October 2011.

The paper plate mask was most likely the second mask that we ever made.  Again, these masks have come a long way from the ones we remember making in elementary school. A paper plate mask can be very simple, very colorful, and very sophisticated.

An awesome Day of the Dead skull mask made by Jessica Wilson. Here’s a link to her blog.

Lion’s head mask by Martine. Here’s a link to her tutorial.

A couple of things you want to ask yourself before making your mask:

• Do I want a mask that covers my entire head or just part of my face? Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Half or three quarter masks are easier to wear for long periods of time. With masks that cover the head, you need to be sure that they are light in weight and are easy to see out of  and breath in.
• How will I attach my mask to my face? With a full head mask, that question is easy–it just slips on. With a half, quarter, or full face mask, how to keep it on becomes a little tricky. One idea: attach the mask to a pair of glasses, either your prescription lenses or a pair of sunglasses that you’ve taken the lenses out of. Another possibility is to build the mask over a hat base like a baseball cap with the visor cut off.
• How will I create my design? Don’t be discouraged if you can’t draw. The good news is that there are free templates everywhere on the web. Just Google “printable mask template” and see what comes up. There are downloadable templates of all kinds for both kids and adults.

But movies aside, what would survivors in post-apocalyptic world actually wear? I can see the point of stompy boots–you need sturdy footgear when tromping through the rubble of previously thriving cities–but booty shorts, lace up pants, long dresses, and mini-skirts? No way. Moviemakers tend to take the Western point of view that lack of modern technology equates primitive society. The reality is that any society where the members have the leisure time to paint intricate tattoos on their body and construct elaborate armor and decorative as opposed to practical clothing is extremely sophisticated.

In a realistic post-apocalyptic scenario, people would be living on a much more primitive level. It’s always a safe bet to assume that large scale agriculture and manufacturing have become casualities of the apocalypse so where are folks going to be getting their fabric from? And what about the skill set needed to make clothing items, armor, weapons, etc. from scratch?

Moviemakers usually get around awkward questions like this by setting their films either immediately after disaster or by assuming that their societies have rapidly reached a sophisticated level. For the purposes of our scenario, however, let’s assume that neither of those things has happened. How do people cope in a world where ready access to clothing materials has been cut off?

One way would be to re-purpose pre-existing materials as in the examples shown below:

Street sign armor made by Chain Crafts (see blog here) and modeled by Eric L. Posted to Crafster. Shoulder armor is made from discarded Stop and Dead End signs. Metal was shaped using a ballpeen hammer and an anvil.

Joan of Arc suit of armor made by Obudah (Craftster) from bicycle intertubes. The whole suit took 40-50 hours of work.

But re-purposing only lasts as long as there are stockpiles of pre-made goods. Sooner or later the rubble runs out and people have to generate their own garments (and other objects of daily life) from raw materials. That means re-learning all those pre-industrial, agrarian skills most folks have forgotten. Sure, the sheep may now be mutant and man-sized, but that doesn’t mean one can’t gather their glow-in-the-dark wool and spin it into yarn. (Say it with me now: “we’re going to need a bigger spindle”).

Really, when you think about, costumers and artisans with their hard-won hoard of do-it-yourself skills will be in high demand come the apocalypse.  Yes, it will be artists who rule this brave new world. Mwuwahahahaha!

It took 33 yards of tulle, hand sewn to a simple tube dress, to turn Craftster poster binkyrmt into a shower scrubbie. Or poof. Or loofa. Or whatever you want to call those little scrubbie things.

Her shoes deserve special mention. She took rubber duckies, glued to them to snap on barrettes, and then clipped them onto to her regular shoes.

Don and Beth Kingston dressed up as–wait for it, you know it’s coming–a pair of boobs. Read about here on her blog. Beth got the idea from Pinterest.  Touch of genius: the pink ribbon in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.

What would Halloween be without a topical political reference? I thought that the  image of the Monopoly Man holding his Occupy Park Place sign was terrifically clever.  Uploaded to the Huffington Post by user Mark Schroeder.

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is Craftster poster pinupkate dressed as a steak. A regular steak. Her significant other was dressed as a butcher.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this costume. Blogger Merrilee is dressed as a book fairy. Read her post about her costume here. Her wings are made from the cover of an old dictionary and her skirt is made from rolled up dictionary pages. A great costume for a teacher, a children’s librarian, or anyone who is doing storytime with kids.

What a great costume.  Osujen posted a picture of her Comic Girl outfit to Instructables. The makeup word balloons on her face say “Pow” and the word balloon on her headband says “Kaboom”. The bodice is made from duct tape and the skirt is made from cheap fabric. Both have comic book pages over the top, secured with a combination of spray adhesive and packing tape.

Craftster poster Snarkdog and her friend dressed up as Lucy and Ethel from the candy factory episode. If you’ve never seen this episode of the Lucille Ball show, the plot involves Lucy and Ethel taking jobs packing chocolates at a chocolate factory hence the conveyor belts and the candies.

M-I-C-K-E-Y …..admit it, the old theme song for the Mickey Mouse Club is going through your head right now, isn’t it? This is a very simple, but very effective group costume. Kudos to the Mouseketeers! Uploaded to the Huffington Post by user oojenn.

Okay, I’m a sucker for animal costumes and you have to love one that involves brown felt, a pair of white long johns, and hot glue.  Read more about Ic4isu’s great Halloween outfit here on Instructables.

I was particularly taken with their Pele costume. Check it out below.

The site gives you a bit of background on the goddess or historical figure being featured. They provide links and instructions for putting together the costume pieces. They also take suggestions for future costumes.

Second is Pinterest, an on-line pin board, that has become one of my new favorite sites for ideas and inspiration. You can search by category (click on Everything) or you can type your terms into the search box. I would suggest starting out with something generic like “Halloween” or “Costume” and then becoming more specific e.g. “Angry Birds Costume”.  You can also sign up for an account and create your own pinboard.

• In answer to the Middle Eastern dancer’s dilemma about how much makeup should you wear for the small stages we tend to perform on, Moria recommends doing the same highlighting and contouring that you would do for the theater stage, but just less intense.
• It pays to have someone that you trust in the audience to give you feedback on how you look e.g. were your features discernable or did your face seem to blend into your neck?
• Good makeup brushes are the key to a professional-looking application. If you have good brushes, you can get by with cheap makeup.
• Wear false eyelashes to accent your eyes. If you always found them too heavy for your eyelids that way I did as a young dancer, apply them Moria’s way: tilt your head straight back and position the false lash above your own lashes and about mid-way over the pupil of your eye. Now press in place. The false lashes should go up at the outside corner of your eye. If the lashes seem to be dragging your eye down, take off and reapply. Tilting the head back is the key to applying false lashes.
• Think of your hair as a sculpture. Layer locks of hair over each other in order to build height, then add scarves, flowers, and jewelry.
• Keep hair and hair ornaments in place with bobby pins inserted one over the other to form an “X” shape. Locks and ornaments bobby pinned like that will stay in place all night (and I can vouch for the true of this statement).

• Zombies will continue to be popular. By gosh, it’s just like this trend can’t die. Or something. Expect to see a Middle Eastern twist this year with fallen dictators and Osama Bin Laden making appearances.
• Pirates and vampires also continue their reign of terror.
• Movie-wise, with the Harry Potter film series now come to end, expect a rush of Potter costumes as fans bid a fond farewell to the Boy Wizard and his friends.  Interest in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland continues strong.
• Cowboys vs. Aliens is such a fun concept that, regardless of the quality of the movie, expect to see some combination of cowboys, aliens, or a mashup of the two.

The coin bra, as I’m going to be using the term, refers to a bra in which the cups are entirely covered with individual coins which are hand-sewn on. I am not talking about coin bra covers which are pre-made meshes of coins and/or coins mixed with other elements such beads, bells, mirrors, etc. that are meant to be tacked onto a covered bra nor am I talking about lengths of coins used as trims.

In my day, the coin-covered bra was THE dream bra that every dancer aspired to. It wasn’t as easy to buy pre-made bra and belt sets as it is today so a dancer who owned a coin bra (see below) had either worked her fingers to the bone or had paid someone else top dollar to make it. Either way, she would be the object of much admiration and envy among her fellow dancers.

Marta Schill Kouzouyan on the cover “The Compleat Belly Dancer”, the first bellydance book I ever bought.

When designing a coin bra, your first consideration must be the weight of the coins themselves. Real coins or coins stamped out of metal are heavy and many of them together are very heavy. Aluminum coins are our friends when it comes to covering bra cups. If you are reluctant to give up the real coin look, consider mixing real coins with aluminum ones or add the metal coins to the belly drape of the bra. If you are still determined to go with real coins (and the finished look is indeed fabulous), remember that you will need to do a lot of bra engineering to make that costume piece comfortable.

Americans: it is illegal under U.S. law to deface American coins by drilling holes in them. It is, however, perfectly legal to drill holes in foreign coins so deface that foreign currency all you want. You can pick up bags of mixed coins of other countries at coin dealerships. Jewelry supply companies may also have coins.

Metal coins without holes need to be prepped before you can work with them. You need to have access to a coin press to make the holes and then you need to spend some time filing off the burrs (rough edges of the holes). When I was looking to drill some coins, my friend, Glynda, talked to her metal smithing teacher and he let us use the metal drill press in the university art dept. lab. I only had a small handful, probably about 20 coins altogether, and it still took us about a hour and a half. The drilling goes quickly, the filing takes a while.

When you’re sewing the coins onto the bra, start at the bottom of the cup and work your way up, overlapping the top row over the below one as you go. You will need to use tough thread such as dental floss, carpet, or button hole thread because the back and forth movement of the coins will eventually saw through the thread. Speaking of coin movement, don’t sew the coins down too tightly. They have to be able to move freely or you won’t get the characteristic jingling sound. To do this, it helps to use a bead as a spacer between the coins and the fabric. You take your needle through the back of the bra cup, through the bead, through the hole of the coin, around once or twice, back up through the bead, and into the fabric. Before you tie it off, flip the coin back and forth to check if it is moving easily. If not, loose the thread up until it does. Then tie it off and repeat. (I did mention that coin bras are a lot of work, didn’t I?) Depending on the smoothness of your knotwork, you may need to line the inside of the bra cups to keep them comfortable.

Be sure to buy more coins than you think you are going to need. Murphy’s Law of Costuming states that if you run out of coins before your bra is completely covered, it will be next to impossible to find an exact match. If you are using aluminum coins, you may find that you need to use two coins together instead of just one in order to get that clink-clink sound.

Metal bras appeal to those of us who have never lost our Red Sonja fantasies. The She-Devil with a Sword was a creation of sword and sorcery author Robert E. Howard and appeared both in print and in the comic book adventures of Conan the Cimmerian. Ignore the modern re-incarnations. My Sonja will always be the lady below.

As a young woman, I never saw Sonja’s chain mail bikini outfit as sexist. After all, Conan himself was only wearing a loin cloth most of the time. More importantly, Sonja could take care of herself in a fight unlike the other damsels Conan usually encountered who cowered behind him and needed rescuing from various eldritch horrors. So it’s understandable that everyone likes the “warrior woman” vibe that a metal bra gives off.

If there were any justice in this world, Jennifer Lopez would play Red Sonja.

Lotus bra cup made Talon Armory. Click here for their Etsy page. These bra covers are made with small holes so you can sew them onto an existing bra.

First, a word of caution: working metal is an advanced skill. If you are a novice, you are better off commissioning your bra from a skilled metal worker. Second, a great many metal bras on the market are art bras. They are meant to be shown off as sculpture or worn on a runway, not danced in. So it pays to deal with a metal worker who has had experience creating bras for dancers.

Chain mail bras are actually quite common these days and aren’t the one-off project they once were. Again, knitting metal links into a 3-D form is an advanced skill

Metal-look bra made by Organic Armor. Latex over foam or cloth which is then painted to resemble metal.

A compromise solution is the Organic Armor bra seen above. These bras look like metal, but are lightweight and more comfortable to wear. And because they are made of latex, they can be painted any color and molded into fantastic shapes. Click here to go to Organic Armor’s home page and be sure to check out the dancer videos on the Belly Dance Wear page which shows their creations in action.

• Is this your first costume bra? If so, you will want something that will go with a lot of different outfits so consider making it in either gold or silver. Some dancers split the difference and use BOTH gold and silver. You could also go with copper if that suits your coloration.
• Keep your decorations lightweight. Pick up the bag of sequins, coins, shells, washers, or whatever you’re planning on putting on your costume bra. Does it feel heavy? If it feels heavy now, the completed bra is going to be heavy, too, and it is going to feel like a ton once you’re dancing in it.
• Unless that’s the look you’re going for, avoid placing your appliques, beads, coins, etc. right over your nipples. Instead place your decorative elements either above or below the nipples of your breasts. If you really want to highlight your nipples, take a tip from burlesque dancers and put your decoration slightly above your natural nipple line. It gives you an automatic “breast lift”. A cultural note: Egyptians do not regard breasts in the same way Westerners do. Breasts are just devices to feed the baby with and do not have the sexual connotations they have in the West. Therefore, Egyptian-made bras and costumes often feature nipple-centric designs which is something to keep in mind if you are purchasing an imported costume.
• Hand sewing is the order of the day. Yes, a low temperature glue gun will help you tack ornaments and trims into place, but don’t rely on glue alone to keep a critical costume element like your bra together. There is no substitute for sewing down or at least tacking down trims and ornaments. Depending on how you are constructing your bra, you may be able to use a sewing machine to make the straps and possibly the sides as well. However, the cups typically have to be done by hand.

In my day, we had two options when it came to decorating our bras: ethnic (which meant coins) and cabaret (which meant beads).  Today’s dancers have a lot more options. My advice is to collect photos where possible of designs that you appeal to you and ask yourself what you like about them.

Here’s a nice example of a hand beaded cabaret bra made by Ozma, an American dancer living in Japan. I like the restrained yet luxurious beading and the sleek, modern feel. Ozma made this as part of her peacock costume. Yes, she made and beaded the skirt and the arm and ankle bands as well.

Zipperbra by HeyCarrieAnn (Craftster).

I hadn’t considered using zippers as a decorative element before, but I like the effect. HeyCarrieAnn created the above as an art bra, but you could adapt it for a costume bra. If so, I would suggest sewing the zippers down rather than gluing them as she did.

Button covered bra found on Ebay. Seems to have been taken down now. I like the cheerful play of colors although I would have covered the bra base in hot pink fabric rather than leaving it plain.

Buttons have become a popular decorative motif these days. Buttons have the advantage of being relatively cheap and easily available. Be sure to use flat rather than shanked buttons for your decorative purposes. Shanked buttons stand up from the surface of the fabric and tend to catch things like veils, etc.

Button covered bra from Gypsy Rain in Australia. These kind of bras are meant to be worn over a choli, not on their own.

Geekella models her bra and hip scarf Craftster (2008).

Tassels are always a fun alternative to coins for a tribal or semi-tribal look. I like the way Geekella has used stretchy black fabric to add horizontal interest across the clevage. A nice tribal fusion design.

Pink ruffled, black-striped bra by webs55 (Etsy). Here’s a link to her Etsy page.

We’ve haven’t talked about the selection of the base fabric for the bra because the base fabric is usually secondary to the beading or other decorations. However, the above bra is a great example of the visual punch you can achieve with minimal decoration and the right selection of covering fabrics. What I like about this bra is its versatility–you could wear this for a tribal fusion costume, you could wear it as part of a burlesque costume, it could go gothic, it could go steampunk.

First, if you intend to make a traditional covered bra, you are going to need a well-fitting, hard shelled bra. By “hard shelled”, I mean a bra with sturdy cups that are made out of solid fabric.

Why a hard shelled bra? Because a decorated bra with beads, coins, shells, or some combination of all of the above is heavy and stretchy lingerie fabric will pull apart under the weight.  Yes, you can reinforce the cups to some extent, but that won’t help if the bra wasn’t built well to begin with. And yes, you can make your own bra from scratch, but be advised that making a bra completely from scratch requires very advanced sewing skills. If you are a beginning or intermediate sewer or a complete non-sewer, you are better off using an existing bra and transforming it.

Finding the right bra is the most critical step of the process. The most important thing is the fit of the cups. Do they fit your breasts without wrinkling (too big) or  your breasts bulging out at the top (too small)?  The larger your bust, the more you will need support along the sides. Can the current sides be covered and used as is or are they too delicate? If the latter, you can chop off the bra sides and use them as a pattern to make sturdier ones.

• If you have tried to find a decent hard shelled bra in your size and have come up empty-handed, don’t despair. There are several bra alternatives you can use.
• The first is, as I mentioned earlier, to chuck the whole idea of a two-piece costume and go with a beladi dress. The term “beladi dress” covers a wide range of garments from simple T-shaped tunics to close-fitting, heavily beaded, evening gown-style dance dresses. The advantage of going with a beladi dress is that it provides a head-to-toe line which is very flattering to petite and short-torsoed dancers.
• The second is to go with a midriff length top. This can be Indian-style choli or it can be a T-shirt or dress that you have hacked off under the bust, hemmed, and elasticized. A big advantage to wearing an Indian-style choli, as many Tribal dancers do, is that it makes the fit of the bra less critical. Since the dancer is wearing her own lingerie bra underneath the choli, the costume bra worn over the top can be for decoration and doesn’t have to be supportive. Some Tribal style dancers wear decorated bikini tops over their cholis.

• A third possibility, especially if you are a Fusion dancer, is to go with a leotard top.  There are a plethora of midriff-length, jazz dance-inspired tops and unitards that you can buy right off the rack which is a big plus especially if you are a troupe costumer and are trying to outfit a group of people on a tight budget.

Back to the basics of bra construction. Once you’ve found your ideal hard shelled bra, you will need to do the following:

• Cover the bra with your fashion fabric. Pick a bra base that matches as closely as possible your covering fabric e.g. black bras for dark fabrics, white or beige for dark color fabrics. That way, if a little bit of the base peeks through, it won’t be that obvious.
• Chop off the straps and the side band (unless you are covering the side band). Whatever you do, don’t rely on delicate lingerie straps to hold up your heavily decorated costume bra. You’re going to need either ties or elastic. Personally, I favor tough, inch-wide waistband elastic. It’s easy to get and holds up well under the stress of performance. However, ties are also very popular and have the advantage of being adjustable.
• Decide on the placement of the straps. It helps to have an assistant when you’re doing this.  The halter is a favorite because it is quick, easy, and doesn’t require an individualized fitting. You’ll see this style a lot especially with purchased bras. My problem with halter-style straps is that the weight of the cups and of your breasts presses on the vertebrae in your neck. At best, the bra will literally give you a pain in the neck. At worst, you might develop serious back or disc problems.  A more ergonomic way to do the straps is to have them extend naturally over the shoulders or to cross them in the back.  That way, the weight of the bra and your bust is balanced evenly.
• Decorate the cups of your bra, your straps, and side pieces and connect them all together.  We’ll discuss the decoration part in more detail in the next post.
• Try the finished product on and make the final corrections. Remember, anything that’s mildly irritating now is going to be agonizing about half-way through your performance.

For more detailed accounts and photos of the bra construction process, I recommend Googling “how to make a bellydance bra.” Thanks to the magic of the Internet, a number of dancers have shared their techniques on-line and while each one has her individual preferences, especially when it comes to covering the bra, the basic process is the same.

Making your own decorated bra can be a lot of work, but if you are a craft-y sort of costumer, it can also be a lot of fun. The most difficult part of the process I’ve found is getting a hard-shelled bra whose cups fit properly.

The classic bra and belt set is most flattering to women who have a hourglass figure (that is, a waist smaller than their hips and evenly proportioned on the top and bottom) and a bra cup size that ranges from B-D. Can other figure/bust types wear this kind of costume? Yes, but they have to take extra steps to make it look good on them.

• Pear-shaped women should make sure that they wear something extra on top–cabaret sleeves, epaulets, cabaret jackets, choli tops, short Ghawazee jackets, etc.–to balance out their silhouette.
• On apple-shaped women, the bra and belt set creates two horizontal lines across the torso which calls attention to its rectangular, waistless nature. A good way to fix this is to draw the eye up in a diagonal direction–say, a sequinned applique that wraps across the waist and continues up onto the arm.
• On very large and very small busted women, a decorated bra, especially a very sparkly, heavily coined, or shiny metallic one, can make them look disproportionate.  The eye is drawn to the very large or very small shiny circles at the expense of the rest of the costume.
• The best fix is to make the bra blend with the rest of the costume as much as possible. One way would be to wear the bra over a choli (a midriff length top) in a matching color. Another way would be to wear the bra under a baladi dress. The baladi dress could be transparent and cover the bra completely or it could be opaque with a deeply cut neckline that allows a bit of the bra to peek out. Yet another option would be to make the bra and belt part of an Egyptian-style dancing dress. Dancing dresses are more like long evening gowns than the T-shaped baladi dresses.

• If the bra must be front and center, I would suggest covering the cups with a matte (as opposed to a shiny fabric) if possible. Regarding bra decoration, small-busted dancers will want to create as many horizontal lines as possible, both with the stomach drape (the fringe or beads under the bra that draw attention to the abdominal work) and with the motifs on the cups themselves. Large busted dancers should try to create diagonal or straight lines with their cup decorations and stomach drapes.

You will also want to consider how you plan to clean the bra. Remember, heavily decorated bras can’t be washed. They usually have to be aired out and eventually your sweat will break down the fibers and the threads. Removable bra pads that can be unstitched, taken out, cleaned, and sewn back in are a good idea.  If you are beading your bra, consider putting the beads on bias tape (for fringe) or on making separate appliques and then attaching either the tape or the appliques to the bra.  That makes taking the bra apart for later cleaning or reconstruction a lot easier.