Oh, The Glamourous Life!

Dear Constant Reader,

When we were planning our summertime show, Queens of the Jiggle, I knew I wanted to perform “Too Darn Hot” with my new fans (seen here with my chief fan inspector). And new fans deserve a new costume.

After some discussion and brainstorming, we decided on a body harness with removable fringe. This then morphed into a frame bra and fringe belt set instead. I wanted to use as much of our existing supplies as possible, so for the base, I used some silver over black elastic in the troupe stash. Not particularly flame or heat colored, but that’s fine.

I stood very still while Scratch draped and pinned the elastic into the bra structure, then I carefully wiggled out and did all the sewing. I was able to scavenge the bra hooks, rings, and sliders from an old bra. Huzzah!

The bottom band kept shifting, but I knew how to fix it — a little trick I learned from Christina Manuge — with plastic boning. But I didn’t have any. With time getting tight, Scratch cut some strips of clear rigid plastic and drilled teensy holes into them. I filed down the corners with an emery board and sewed them into place. Perfect!

I didn’t love the look of the elastic belt after the fringe was removed and Scratch didn’t like the action of removing the belt, so I decided to incorporate the fringe into my g-string. My first thought was to make a new strappy g-string, but I went for easy. I took an existing g-string, already rhinestoned, removed its elastic (which is very easy with the style of g-string I make — see my costume book!) and added the black and silver elastic.

The pasties I had already, having made them for “Satanic Panic”, last summer.

That however, was the end of using what we had. I needed fringe and Scratch found the perfect stuff — yellow shading to red, just like my fans.

Once the fringe arrived I added snaps (those did come from my stash) and the costume was done! I proudly tried it out at rehearsal and discovered that the elastic was too stretchy. With the fans in my hands, I couldn’t get enough force to unsnap the fringe. Time was running out. What could I do?

Devastasia suggested small magnets. She used them very successfully on her epic snowlady costume this past winter. (seen in rehearsal at right). Scratch ordered a whole bunch in various sizes and I got to work exchanging snaps for magnets. After a test run where I thought I had a clever idea, but physics beat me, I reconfigured the magnets. The fringe removal finally worked perfectly! Or so I thought.

The last item I had to buy was red and yellow rhinestones. Alas, the post office told me my package from Looking Glass Gems wasn’t going to arrive until after the show. So disappointing! But wait — they fortuitously came a day early and I spent part of Friday gluing stones onto the fringe and fans. Not as many as I would have liked, but at least I had some sparkle.

Once we arrived at Deacon Giles, I put the costume on and rehearsed the number. Only to discover that went I went up the front stairs to the stage, the movement dislodged the fringe from the magnets on the back of my g-string. Good to know, nothing I can do to fix it now; I’ll enter from the wings instead.

However, there are still a couple of steps up from the side of the stage, and despite climbing carefully, I still lost one of the hip swags as I was entering. Annoying. I think I’ve fixed the issue.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and I hope to have an opportunity to use this costume again soon!

And now that you’ve read all that, here’s your reward. Photos taken backstage by Devastasia

I don’t love the front drape of the fringe on the g-string and I’ve since changed it.

Here’s an action shot from audience member (and fan dancer) Jenne alla Vodka:

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