The Diva In Us All

Last night, I had the pleasure of working as a cigarette girl for a 1940's Fashion Show, hosted by a local museum. I was asked to dress as closely to the period as possible, and they would provide me with gloves, a hat, and a cigarette box.

Now, if you don't know me in person, you won't know that I rarely change my hair. I'm a "if my hair can't be done in 5 minutes, I'm not doing it" person. I wear my hair pretty much the same way every day, but it's low maintenance hair so it works for me.

To prepare for the event, I started researching the 1940's online and discovered that, due to the war restrictions, clothing had to last from the 1930's, so fashion remained the same. Women used more and more elaborate hairstyles to make up for the fact that they were essentially wearing last seasons clothing.

Great! I thought to myself. But I found a really fantastic blogger who had pretty low maintenance hairstyle tips from the 1940's. So unfortunately my HipMix.net officemates had to put up with me wearing weird hairstyles for awhile.

On the day of the event, I found myself in a predicament. I don't have a curling iron, and my schedule did not allow for me curling my hair at the event. I would need to be mostly ready before I stepped foot in the venue. Since my hair is naturally curly, I thought to myself, maybe if I create my own ringlets, the effect will be the same. So after I stepped out of the shower, I parted my hair, combed it out with a wide tooth comb, and then hand created ringlets, squeezing out the excess water as I went. I did this all around my head, making larger ringlets at the back, and then I went back and put mousse all in my hair for hold and de-frizzing effects.

The effect worked! I had perfect little ringlets. Well, at least on one side of my head. The other side I towel dried first, thinking it would still work. It didn't, by the way. So don't do that. No towels!

At work, we've been preparing our Diva week, which was getting me pretty hyped up for the fashion show. I kept thinking to myself that all I wanted to do was get home and put makeup on! I don't think I've ever felt that way.

This is probably the first time that I really got what Dilara means when she talks about putting on her belly dance costume. There's something in the effort, the consideration, that makes you feel like a different person. I mean, I'm still me - just a different version. It was exhilarating to say the least. The compliments didn't hurt, either.

After the fashion show, I was feeling like more people needed to see all my effort. So I took the show on the road.

Next time? I'm researching period language and I'm only going to use period speech when in costume.

Before I leave you, here's an awesome makeup artist with great tutorials: http://www.kandeej.com/
And don't forget to enter our Diva contest! http://HipMix.net/share.php

Still a Newbie After Everything

This week marks one year since I became inducted into the world of belly dance. I say inducted because even though it is categorized as a hobby, belly dance is more of a lifestyle, a club even.

After being in the world for what feels like forever, I am still reminded every now and again that for the time being I am only a visitor to the world of belly dance. I don't take regular lessons, I don't own a costume, and I still haven't set goals to my life in dance. While I'm passionate about the art form, I haven't been bitten by the bug, so to speak. Even so, I'm constantly inspired by the women and men of belly dance.

Today, my lesson came in the form of a new word: tribaret. Clearly I can discern what it means, but I guess it took me off guard that I'd never heard or considered such a term. Maybe because it seems repetitive - isn't tribal already derived from cabaret? The performance labeled as such is what appears to be a relatively traditional cabaret dance, only performed to a modern song (Amy Winehouse, in this case).

Here's the video:

What do you guys think?