Keeping a strapless dress up?
I'm working on a Halloween costume and my dress just refuses to stay up. I've altered it as much as I can, and my bust is small so it doesn't hold very tight. I've looked at fabric tape but I'm not sure if I can trust it to stay up all night while I'm at a Halloween party. So what are the best ways to keep a dress up? It's corseted in the front, laced with ribbon, and pulled as tight as it can be with a strapless bra and some fabric sewn into the dress itself.
Comments
Strapless dresses are supported with boning and canvas from the waist. Your boobs don't hold them up, and tighter isn't better. Toupee tape or "fashion tape" might hold this up if there's not much weight to the costume, but if you really want it to stay securely, you need an inner structure to carry the weight of your dress on the waist or waist and hip.
A "real" strapless dress starts with a canvas or twill or coutil undergarment cut like a princess dress, with no ease, extending from waist to the top of the dress. Boning (typically spiral steel) is sewn to the seamlines of the foundation, and a firm belt is made for the waistline. Then you add a lining against the skin, and an outer layer of fabric to keep the boning from showing through to the outside (I usually use cotton flannel), and then the fashion fabric to the outside.
Costumey dresses usually have to be quite light to be held up by elastic through the bust area. There are some elastics available that have silicone rubber "gripper strips" that can help a bit, but they have to be in contact with the skin. And I'd use skin glue with them.
At this point, I'd probably make myself a "corset", of cotton twill that I'd prewashed so it's well shrunken and firm, shaped to me and with the top of the corset shaped like the top of the dress bodice. The corset bottom needs to be resting securely on the waist, and secured by something like a pair of dress hooks. Since spiral steel boning is not easy to come by, and I don't like rigilene boning, I'd make channels on the corset of twill tape or linen, and slip some zip ties (=cable ties) with the ends cut off into the channel for boning. Then sew the top of the dress to the top of the corset.
You will not need a strapless bra or tight lacing of the dress with the inner corset.
Strapless Dress Tape
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RE:
Keeping a strapless dress up?
I'm working on a Halloween costume and my dress just refuses to stay up. I've altered it as much as I can, and my bust is small so it doesn't hold very tight. I've looked at fabric tape but I'm not sure if I can trust it to stay up all night while I'm at a Halloween party....
Pin it on the inside to your bra in the back. Sew transparent straps to the dress if it is not a real classy Halloween party.
Hun, I had the same problem! i asked my husband, and he gorilla glued it to my body! Trust me, you can't go wrong with it! It stayed up all night, I had no problems what-so-ever.
It still hasn't oe off yet, and it's been 3 months!
He's so smart.
I recommened it.
xoxoxox,
Kim