THE ASSIUT QUEEN

 Assiut Queen Dawn Devine aka Davina: Photo by Alisha Westerfield

Quite a few dancers can brag about having a career  that spans a quarter of a century, but not that many of them can also claim concurrent and wildly  successful careers  as costumers,  art historians and  authors! The multi-talented  Davina, aka Dawn Devine  can…only thing is, she doesn’t gloat about it, she’s  much too  nice – and busy- for that sort of thing. Easy-going, sweet and funny, Davina is so understated about her vast accomplishments, that even if you know her, they might surprise you!

Dawn has so many college degrees, they practically form their own alphabet, and in addition to performing and teaching belly dancing and costuming classes throughout the USA, she also has numerous museums show credits.  She is an expert on antique textiles  (especially Assiut, but more on that in a minute!)  Victorian clothing, and vintage couture, with many lecturing engagements under her tasseled hip belt.  She also   a slew of informative, instructional   costuming books to her credit, including Embellished Bras, Costuming from the Hip, From Turban to Toe Ring, Bedlah, Baubles and Beads and Style File.

Rayah wears a vintage assiut shawl from the collection of Judeen Esau.  This gorgeous piece has a rich blue groundcloth and a golden hue to the metal.  Photo by Alisha Westerfeld

 As anyone who knows her can attest, Dawn is a walking encyclopedia on anything concerning belly dance costuming, but her favorite subject, and most enduring obsession is Assiut, the gorgeous traditional net and metal fabric named for the    Egyptian city of the same name.  All belly dancers, no matter what their preferred style, are in love with Assiut.  Spotting a vintage piece of Assiut on eBay causes dancers to bid like maniacs, eager to  part with their rent money. Merely mentioning it  on social media causes comments like “I’m drooling all over my keyboard!”  And in real life, a shawl of vintage Assuit at a flea market has been known to induce catfights.

 Davina’s  own Assiut mania began this way:

“My love story began in a crowded antique store, filled with dusty cases holding tumults of vintage items. I turned and looked across a crowded room and my life changed.  In an instant the rest of the world disappeared and I only had eyes for one thing. My love story began in a crowded antique store, filled with dusty cases holding tumults of vintage items.  There were jewelry pieces and objects d’art. There were trinkets and baubles, the day-to-day objects that populated the lives of our ancestors, 60, 80, 100 years ago.  But there, draped gently over the edge of a photo frame, and laid delicately across a shelf was my beauty.  She was creamy and soft, with pewter-toned metal stitches.  It was Assiut, and it was going to be mine!”

 

                        1920's French silent screen actress Stacia Napierkowska in Assiut

 Since that fateful moment, she’s been hooked on Assiut, also known as tulle bi telli.  It became a hobby, moved into a personal mania phase, and then, it took over her life! Now, she’s spreading the love- and her vast knowledge.

Davina’s latest book, done with  photographer and belly dancer Alisha Westerfield,  The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut was just published.  The book is gigantic, highly informative, impeccably researched, and loaded with incredible  vintage photos of Assuit, as well as step-by-step instructions  for fabricating costumes.

Even before the book was a glimmer in her eye, Davina   spent years researching Assuit, not to mention fabricating high-end, custom-made costumes for herself and many other dancers.

She says,

“I committed myself to a massive interdisciplinary research project with one simple mission, find out everything there is to know about the cloth we call Assiut or tulle bi telli.  The result of years of research, months of writing, crafting hundreds of costumes, dozens of photo shoots, is my new book “The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut.” 

 In honor of the book’s publication, Davina has  complied a list of facts on Assiut exclusively for this blog, here it is:

1 - Assiut is made from cotton.  Frequently, antique Assiut is labeled as silk, linen, or a blend, but the truth is that vintage Assiut cloth is made from finely spun, high-twist Egyptian cotton.  

2 - Assiut can be spelled in a myriad of ways.  Arabic cannot be easily translated, so rather, it’s transliterated by ear from spoken Arabic to written English, with British and Americans sounding out the words and writing them down phonetically.  This leads to more than 50 spelling variations.

3 - Most people know that the phrase tulle bi telli means “mesh with metal”... but few know that this is a marriage of three languages.  Tulle is from the name of the lace-making capital of France.  Telli is from Turkish word Tel, which means metal.  Bi is “with” in Arabic. 

4 - Assiut is a single-stitch embroidery technique.  The stitch is made with flattened metal wire called plate, and the stitch is made using a blunt tipped double-eyed needle. 

5 – Antique Assiut cloth was made by the thousands of yards and was considered the essential souvenir for travelers down the Nile during the British occupation of Egypt.  British, American, Russian, French, And Italian women all collected and coveted Assiut cloth for it’s supple drape and metallic gleam. 

6 - Vintage Assiut pieces come in three sizes.  Scarves, narrow enough to wrap around the neck, head or hat to keep flies, gnats and mosquitos off of the face.  Shawl sizes, which were designed to be worn as wraps about the shoulder, were wide enough to envelop the body, but short enough to be easily handled by the wearer.  Opera wrap or piano shawl size, which was the longest and widest, designed to fit over a grand piano, or to wrap around the body, and still have enough left to elegantly drag along the ground, a shimmering train of exotic abundance.

7 - Modern Assiut should be pounded or rolled to press down the individual stitches.   Machine wash on gentle and tumble dry low in a mesh lingerie bag to keep the stitches from catching, and pulling.  Vintage Assiut should always be hand washed and dried as flat as possible.

8 - Assiut is associated with weddings in Upper Egypt. Some of the most popular motifs are directly related to wedding symbology. Camel figures with plants, stars, or even stylized men, represent the groom.  The female figures, often holding hands, or with arms raised, represent the bride and her bridal party.  Other common images that appear in Assiut wedding shawls include combs, for preparing the brides hair, perfume bottles for anointing her body, and diamonds, protective shapes with talismanic properties to protect the bride on her special day.

#

Purchase a copy of “The Cloth Of Egypt: All About Assiut” here:

http://www.amazon.com/Cloth-Egypt-About-Assiut-Assuit/dp/069227054X/

 

The book's cover: I'm wearing an Assiut bra made by Davina & a pre-1919 white Assiut shawl
Photo by Alisha Westerfield

NET WORTH: BODY STOCKINGS, NETS AND HOSE FOR THE STAGE

There are many make up  and costuming  tricks dancers use onstage  to create  a gorgeous, larger-then-life persona...and one of them is the discreet use of body stockings and hose  to create  the illusion of longer limbs and a toned torso. 

For dancers who want to make their legs look sleek and toned onstage, but feel like body make-up just won’t cut the mustard, there’s always the option of using stockings.

 Fishnets seem to work best for performance, because regular nylon stockings often create an undesirable sheen under stage lights. 

It’s a good idea to invest in professional-weight fishnet hose. Danskin and Capezio both make them in a variety of styles, and even Leg Avenue now has a sturdy “Show Girl” hose.  Professional weight stockings are more expensive than regular fishnet hose, but they will hold in any unwanted jiggle on your legs, and will last for ages, serving you well…I’ve had some pairs that lasted for years before losing their elasticity!

Of course it isn’t a faux pas to wear regular, inexpensive fishnets onstage, but you should know that these cheaper stockings lose their form-fitting properties quickly- sometimes within minutes of being put on! They also tend to lose their shape, appearing baggy and loose, and they snag quite easily. With a professional weight stocking, if you happen to get the material caught in a shoe buckle or on a piece of your costuming, pretty much the most damage that will occur will be that you lose the connecting threads of one or two squares.  From the stage, this will not be noticeable at all. With cheaper hose, a long, unsightly run or ladder will most likely appear.

 Professional weight fishnet stockings won’t run when you wear them, OR when you cut them, so you can adapt them to your own personal style quite easily.

 Many gals cut the feet of the stockings off at the ankles if they are using them while going barefoot for belly dance. I personally also cut the elastic waistband off the stockings so it doesn’t create a bulge around my hips… and not just for purposes of costuming, but for every day use as well.

 The hose will stay up just fine without it.

Many burlesque dancers cut off the legs of fishnet hose at the crotch- each leg will stay up by itself, or you can use the hose with garters for a sexy retro look.  Plus, the longer length of hose cut like this is usually more flattering than commercially-made thigh-high stockings, which usually seem to hit most gals just above the knee, visually breaking up the line of the leg, and making even a tall, slender woman look like her legs are   half as long as they actually are.

  Fishnets come in many colors, but the best for stage use are nude (many shades are available to match different skin tones) and black.

 Because of the open net pattern, black hose will create an optical illusion and make your legs look curvier; nude or flesh tones will make your legs appear longer. Though The Radio City Music Hall Rockettes and Las Vegas showgirls are already long-stemmed, they almost always wear skin-toned fishnets with neutral, high-heeled shoes precisely because this combo makes the dancer’s legs look like they go on for miles.

When you choose fishnets for the stage, make sure to get a style that has smaller “windows” some of the fashionable styles have larger squares, and though that may look cute up close at a party, it isn’t that flattering to a dancers' legs when she is onstage.

 When selecting fishnets stockings, decide what your costuming needs are and which illusion you are after.

  Dancers with stretch marks, scars, or those with a few more curves often wear body stockings to smooth out the appearance of the torso.  Body stockings serve to camouflage imperfections, and there are quite a lot of affordable, serviceable options available today.  Specially made for dancers, these body stockings come in a large selection of colors, from skin tones to bright jewel shades.

Some body stockings are more heavy duty than others, and the material used range from light fishnet fabric (the same type of fishnet that the stockings are made of) to heavy power net, the type of fabric that is used in many foundation garments. Some of these body stockings hook in to the bra and belt, some attach  by shoulder straps, others are constructed more like a long-line girdle.   

The weight and stretch of the net will have different visual effects on your body as well. The light to medium weight nets will probably do the trick for covering up scars or stretch marks, as well as smoothing out the appearance of the flesh itself.

  The heavier nets tend to look great when the dancer is standing still, but once she is in motion, because of the thicker material, the net can actually look odd, and though it holds in any jiggle or “reverb”,  it can actually create bulges or rolls that wouldn’t have been there in the first place!

There are many Egyptian belly dance costumes available with the net already built in, often with beautiful bead, sequin and rhinestone embellishments curving across the torso in flattering lines. Some of these costumes are the standard two-piece bedlah, but with the netting already in place, connected to the bra and belt; others are constructed like dresses, but with many “open” panels of netting, to give the illusion of a bare midriff.

Most of the older Egyptian belly dance costumes came with the nets sewn in…but they also had really thick, ugly zippers up the back, along the spine.  For years, I wondered about this…how could the Egyptian costumers do such amazing tailoring and hand beading, yet not know how to install an invisible zipper?

After asking around, I finally found an answer from an Egyptian costumer. Due to the strict laws governing licensed Oriental Dancers in Egypt, the midriff had to be covered. This is why dancers like Fifi Abdou and Soheir Zaki often appeared wearing colored bodystockings to match their costumes.   And, apparently, the large zipper in the back of the flesh-colored nets   wasn’t there because the costumers didn’t know how to sew… it was installed so that if the Vice Police happened to visit a club to check on the dancers for “decency”, they would merely have to stand at the entrance to clearly see the dancer on the stage- and the tell-tale zipper in the back of the costume- to know she was appropriately covered!  I’m not sure if this is an urban legend, but it sure makes sense!

 It is also fairly easy to make your own midriff body nets by altering a pair of professional weight hose.    Purchase a pair of    fishnet tights a size or two bigger than you would normally wear, and cut the legs   of the stockings off a few inches below the crotch,

Leaving the elastic waistband on the hose, step through the legs of the hose and pull the waistband up to just under your bustline. Try on your costume bra, and mark the inside of the bra- and the waistband of the hose- where you want to affix them to each other.  One body stocking can be interchanged with a number of costumes, so try on whichever costumes you would like to use the nets with, and make sure that the marks all correspond.  To fasten them, use heavy-duty hooks and eyes, sewn in horizontally to the inside of the bra and the waist of the body stocking.   Some gals use heavy-duty snaps, but depending on how athletic you get onstage, these can pop open pretty easily.

Some dancers get a separate set of hose, cut the legs off and then sew the entire waistband into the bra, then step into the legs of the body stocking before fastening the bra.

 RESOURCES:

Professional Weight Fishnets by Danskin: Danskin Women's Professional Fishnet Tights, Suntan, C/D

 Professional Weight Fishnets by Capezio; Capezio Women's Professional Fishnet Seamless Tight,Caramel,Small/Medium

 Body stockings at Dahlal Internationale

http://www.dahlal.com/default.aspx?n=1&hs=body%20stocking

 Body stockings at The Belly Dance Shoppe:

http://www.bellydanceshoppe.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=midriff+covers+nets

Custom Belly Dance Bodystockings by Sugar Petals: http://www.sugarpetals.com/body_stockings.asp

Body stockings in different colors—power net midriff body stockings http://www.adiradance.com/dance_costume_cp/BL-001/D_BellyDance/i1/o/Midriff+Power+Net+Body+Stocking.html

 PHOTOS:   Fifi Abdou  wearing a fishnet body stocking, Princess Farhana in Danskin professional weight stockings: credit  Gary & Pierre Silva