Where to Find What to Wear For the Full-Figured Belly Dancer?
Top by Sharif Wear
A Quick Guide to the Best Belly Dance Costume and Apparel Sites for Full-Figured Dancers.
If you are a full-figured gal like me you know that finding belly dance apparel and crop tops in plus sizes can be tough.So here I have listed the (precious few) sites that offer belly dance tops for D cups and bigger.I have only included sites that I feel have reasonable, competitive pricing.
e.k. clothing is one of my favorite sources for belly dance practice cholis. They carry long-sleeved and short-sleeved tie-front cholis in three colors and in a full range of sizes, including plus sizes. They also have the lowest price I have found on the web for this style of choli. Recently I placed an order off their site late at night and then realized I had ordered the wrong size. I emailed them-hoping a human would read it and make the correction, and sure enough a human, (Nicole) emailed me back the next morning confirming the correct size and it was shipped that day!
Interestingly enough I found this site searching for latin dancewear, rather than belly dancewear. Many sites that sell latin dancewear have cholis and flamenco skirts that are perfect for the belly dancer- and from what I have seen the prices on these sites are much more reasonable.
L. Rose Designs will custom make your belly dance choli. They have a great selection of fabrics to choose from, and since its custom you’re almost assured a perfect fit. You choose fabric and sleeve length and pricing is about what you’d pay if you bought off the shelf!
Reflections of Dance is a general dancewear site but they have practice skirts and tops for belly dance, Flamenco, and folkloric dance-all of which works for belly dancers. They also have a plus size section that has tops, pants, and skirts.
Sharif Wear has a HUGE selection of awesome gypsy-style cholis that are great for tribal belly dance. They are pricier than most sites most around-$48. But they do have a clearance section. The thing I liked the most about this site is most of the cholis are shown on full-figured models.
Last but not least isMoondance. This site has a wide variety of belly dance tops and skirts in all sizes from kids to women’s plus sizes. They have every color and style imaginable. I also like that Mooddance uses plus-sized models. Good regular prices-outstanding prices on their sale items. This is a good site for stocking up on the basics.
For performance costumes you can’t do better than Turkish Emporium-no matter what your size. They have hand made cabaret style belly dance costumes for usually under $200! I have some of their costumes and believe me they are exquisitely made and they really do hold up! They carry bra-type cabaret tops in up to D-cup and they have other styles that go all the way to an E-cup.
If you know of some other good sites let us know by leaving comments!
Farida Dance is a UK based company and they like to cater for all sizes (and ages) of belly dancers Have a look at the page http://www.faridadance.com/goddess_creations.htm
As you can see from the models, these are separates and costumes for fuller figured dancers. They also deal in custom made costumes from Eman Zaki of Cairo.