If you’re interested in making a professional belly dance costume, you must know this secret ingredient every famous designer uses – It’s horsehair braid 🙂
You’ve probably seen it being used to finish the hem of skirts and dresses for dance costumes or wedding dresses or evening gowns. It’s also used to accentuate ruffle details. It creates large waves and adds volume to the bottom of the skirts, making these garments look more luxurious!
So what is horsehair braid and how can you use it in your costume projects? Let me show you.
Get access to the Easy Belly Dance Outfit course inside my FREE course here!
What is horsehair braid?
Horsehair braid is a stiff, mesh strip, and comes in many colors and widths. As you can see it’s stiffer than most fabric, and very flexible.
Some come with added texture or sparkly tapes weaved in.
I have 5-7.5cm (2-3in) wide ones here. For making dance skirts, I recommend you try 5 or 7.5cm wide ones because anything narrower doesn’t give much substance to the hem of long dance skirts.
Wider ones sometimes come with thread weaved across one edge.
You can pull this thread out, and the horsehair braid becomes more round. This is so that you can align it and make it flat against curved edges.
How to use horsehair braid when making belly dance costumes
For dance costumes, horsehair braid can be used in 3 different ways.
1. On the inside
This is how horsehair braid is used most commonly for dresses. If you want the wavy hem but don’t want any of the horsehair braids to show, this is the way to go.
If you look at the hem of a skirt and see a fine border, it’s very likely that the skirt is finished this way.
2. On the outside
This technique is commonly used for belly dance costumes or ballroom dresses. Instead of hiding the horsehair braid on the wrong side of the dress, you can show it as a design feature.
It still gives volume to the skirt hem. But when you try this technique, I recommend you shorten the skirt by a few cm, because the horsehair braid adds length to your skirt.
Even if you want your skirt to drag on the floor, I still recommend you shorten the skirt length, because if the skirt is made exactly to touch the floor, the horsehair braid tends to flip and it’s not very pretty.
3. On the outside with trimming
This is a very popular look among designer costumes in recent years. Once you add horsehair braid to your skirt, finish its edge with pretty trimming.
I like to use satin bias tape for this, because it creates a neat finish.
These options where horsehair braid is showing give you more room for creativity. You can match the color of the horsehair to your dress or use a contrasting color. Or use one that has sparkly tapes weaved in. For an extra sparkly finish, you can even further decorate it with rhinestones.
How much horsehair braid to buy
So how do you figure out how much horsehair braid you need? You basically need enough to cover the entire edge that you want to apply it to, so the best way to figure it out is by measuring the length of your pattern.
If it’s just the hem of a skirt, measure the length of the hem on your pattern. And I’d get 1-2m extra just in case the hem stretches.
Where to buy horsehair braid
Just by spending a little extra time, you can add this professional detail to your dance skirts and dresses. It’s not very expensive, usually less than a dollar per yard, so if you’ve never tried it, I highly recommend you give it a shot!
If you want to know where you can get these fun, colorful horsehair braid, here are shops I’ve used:
Duoshalala – lots of colors and sizes!
Judith M Millinery Supply Store
Amazon (affiliate)
How to sew horsehair braid
If you want to know how to make the skirts I showed you in this tutorial, and detailed instructions on how to sew horsehair braid, check out these courses:
To learn all horsehair options (sew on the inside, outside & with trimming):
To learn how to sew horsehair on the outside & with trimming:
And, if you’re new to belly dance costume making, or if you want a quick outfit option, I have a brand new course coming up, called Easy Belly Dance Outfit!
Sometimes we need a last-minute costume in pink because that’s the theme color of the show. Or you have a troupe that needs simple yet beautiful, matching costumes.
In Easy Belly Dance Outfit, you’ll learn to make this beautiful outfit in 2 days. As you can see, we’ll be using horsehair braid in this course too, to add that professional touch.
I’m excited to let you know that the course is now available inside my FREE course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101!
Hope you liked this tutorial and got inspired to try horsehair for your next project. If you did, please share this tutorial with your dancer and costumer friends!
Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!
P.S. Pin this image for your future reference 😉
Like what you read? Want to make more costuming bits yourself?
Learn more and sign up for my free email course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101 here!
2 comments for “What is Horsehair Braid? How to Use it for Belly Dance Costumes”