Rio/Las Vegas Showgirl Sequins And Feathers Costume From A Swimsuit!

An exotic fancy dress creation bound to turn heads!!
I made this showgirl outfit for my 19th birthday, the fancy dress theme was 'showbiz', my friends came as the ratpack and various other things that were really not showbiz (Lara Croft, Dennis the Menace, a cat?) but I let them off as it was a great night!
My costume took a lot of time on the run up to my birthday, I got all the bits and bobs on ebay - a red swimsuit, red strings of sequins, red fringing, big ostrich feathers...
First of all I sewed layers of fringing onto the swimsuit. It had really useful ziagonal lines on the suit where it had been sewqn to give a flattering shape, so I just followed these lines and did a couple of rows of fringing on the bottom, one in the middle round the waist and one on the neck line. I used ordinary red thread for this, but had to do most of it while wearing the suit, so I didn't make it too tight to get into! If I did it again it would be more logical to use shearing elastic! Next I sewed on the sequins in the same way, although I sewed them to the fringing so the tension would match. I also sewed sequins down the low back of the suit.

The headdress - I used a red satin headband I already had and pulled a bow off it. I arranged four ostrich feathers in to the formation I wanted and used a bit of red gaffer tape to stick them together, and used gaffer tape again to fix it to the headband. I covered the joins with red sequins! And sewed red sequins down the sides of the headdress!

I made some little cuffs from a black satin belt from an old dress, and sewed red sequins to them and then simply used safety pins to secure them.
I accessorised with silver star earrings and necklace and some gorgeous black sequinned platform peep toes that were far too high, and fake nails in French manicure style with a silvery diamante touch.

Hope you like it :)