Isn’t this an amazing assiut dress? Oscar award-winning fashion designer Anthony Powel designed this amazing garment for the 1978 film “Death on the Nile.” This gown captures the sleek body-conscious lines popular in the 1930s. The long lean silhouette, strappy shoulders, and low-cut neckline captures all the essential design features of the era.
Compare Mia Farrow’s gown to this love sleek 1932-33 era gown worn by Hungarian opera singer Gitta Alpar. Notice how the designer has used the natural weight and drape of the assiut fabric to create a sleek, full-length gown. Gitta Alpar looks amazing in this widely distributed promotional postcard made shortly before Alpar relocated to Hollywood. She appeared in musicals from 1932 to 1941.
It was Anthony Powel’s amazing attention in detail on “Death on the Nile,” led to his win for the 1979 Academy Award for Best Costuming. If you would like to learn more about the costuming for this film, check out The Ultimate Fashion History channel. In this video, costume historian Amanda Hallay presents a nuanced read of the costumes in this film. She discusses how they helped craft the characters, and helped breathe life into this historic old mystery by Agatha Christy.
I really enjoyed this video, I hope you will too! Dawn Devine ~ Davina March 22, 2022
PS: Be sure to give this video a like, and if you enjoy the content, subscribe for more!
I’m so pleased to share with you our progress on our new book. We are in the initial design and preparation phases. During the months of March and April, I’m making costumes, with the aim of completing one full head-to-toe look at a time. To make this happen, I’m matching assiut pieces and garments to their models. As I discuss designs with my team of dancers, I’m taking into account the style and taste of each dancer, the information that I need to communicate about construction and design, as well as balancing the amount of assiut I have to work with. It’s a bit of a puzzle, and I’m reveling in this challenge.
Using the Studio Davina Planner
Back in December, I announced to my “Studio Davina” Facebook group that I was putting together my own custom calendar. I work in quarterly cycles, and this Small Business Planner gives me a place to park and process all the information I’m gathering together during the production of the new book.
Now that we are swiftly approaching the end of Q1 for 2022, I’m starting to plan which sheets I need to print and bind for my Q2 planner. I’m finding that I’m using some of the pages in quite surprising ways. For instance, in the image above, I’ve used the 6 months on a page to sketch thumbnail flats. In my Q2 planner, there will be many more spreads of this layout to accommodate more brainstorming of ideas. The printable planner pages are available on Etsy and since they are completely undated, they are useful anytime you want to take your planning to the next level.
Documenting the Assiut Before Cutting
Through the end of April, we’ve planned photoshoots to document this collection. Alisha Westerfeld is our principal photographer for this book with her good camera and the best lighting we can manage in my office. But both of us are sharing our progress over on our Instagram Feeds. That is where we are sharing outtakes and behind-the-scenes shots in nearly real-time.
Clockwork Alchemy
On Saturday, Alisha and I will be heading to a local steampunk convention where we will be participating in a belly dance show. Later, I’ll be presenting the talk “Belly Dance: 1893 til Today.” If you are in the San Francisco/Bay Area, and looking for something to do, come join us on Saturday afternoon in Burlingame, Ca. Learn more about Clockwork Alchemy 2022 by following this link.
Alisha will be wearing a new deluxe assiut ensemble. Since she’s one of the co-authors, it only seemed fitting to make her ensemble our first of 30 or so looks for the book. Posts on the design and construction coming soon!
Perhaps we’ll see you on Insta, Facebook, or live at an event soon! Dawn Devine ~ Davina March 14, 2022
Join me, author Dawn Devine ~ Davina, for a deep dive into the basic building blocks of costume design. In this talk, we will take a journey through time as we discuss what makes costumes tick. Learn to crack the code and understand the elements and principles of costume design. Learn the formula and use it to guide your design choices for an unforgettable costume.
Understand your existing wardrobe before you shop or buy new costumes.
Learn how your costuming helps you craft your unique performance identity.
Shoppers: Identify good design at a glance to help you pick the best ensemble.
Dancers: Understand the design elements that visually help you appear larger than life on stage.
Designers: Learn to apply the “Design Code” to make flattering, unique, and professional looks.
Will I see you there? Dawn Devine ~ Davina March 12, 2022
WHEW, I think I can safely say I’m back! I’m once again on my feet after a fairly intense battle with the plague. Covid sidelined me for about six weeks and greatly reduced my productivity. So It’s time to get back to doing what I love, teaching classes and sharing the costuming knowledge! So let me catch you up with what’s happening over on the Studio Davina Patreon March 2022.
Sewing Classes on the Studio Davina Patreon
Patreon is the current home of my sewing classes. My goal has been to produce an ever-growing body of workshops and demos. These design and construction techniques are taught in a real-time live over zoom. With a little bit of knowledge and luck, we’ll get replays up and archived for Patreon subscribers.
My approach is to hone in on one topic or theme. Then discuss the design methods and construction techniques together as a unified whole. I really enjoy teaching sewing costume design. My hope is this series will grow into a valuable resource library for costumers looking to fill their creative bucket with new approaches, concepts, and skills.
March Special Event – Reshoot • Reboot
Over the past quarter, I’ve managed to hold my classes, but somehow, the recordings didn’t happen due to tech failure, painful sound, and simply just being too sick to be “Share-worthy.” Now that I’ve recovered most of my voice and have the energy to teach, I’m on a mission to do a full reshoot of the three missing workshops. Along with a bonus live talk where I will share what’s coming in workshop content for the rest of 2022.
50 Minute Monthly Sewing Classes
One of the discoveries I made when reviewing the sad and sick (and now abandoned) video footage is that I was trying to go too fast. After many years of teaching, I realized that I’m used to preparing my presentations for 50 or 90-minute intervals. Why was I trying to squeeze in my class material into 30 minutes? Who knows! But moving forward my monthly sewing class will be 50 minutes of talk and demo, followed by Q&A.
Washing Modern Assiut
Supplies • Materials • Techniques
Thursday, March 24, 7:00 pm Pacific – $7 Patreon Tier
Mad About Maud: Salomania & the Birth of Bedlah
3 Episodes • Pre-Recorded • Belly Dance Costume History
Full Series Available through March 31, 2022 – $15 Patreon Tier
Thank you for your continued support!
Once again, I want to thank the folks who joined me at the beginning of my Patreon journey and have shared the rocky ride over the past few months! If you find these sewing classes intriguing, follow me at Patreon on the $7 or above tier. If you want, even more, join the $15 tier and have access to all the sewing classes and coffee dates, as well as the lecture series. There are always three lectures available on any given month. Now through March 31, 2022, $15 subscribers can access to the full three-part series “Mad About Maud: Salomania and the Birth of Bedlah.” We will announce April’s lecture topic soon, so stay posted!
Now, Time to get caught up on Patreon! Dawn Devine ~ Davina www.davina.us
March 7, 2022
Over the weekend I hit 500 subscribers on YouTube! Yeah! This is the first major hurdle of 2022, and an important milestone on the road towards reaching 1k subscribers in 2022!
500 was a fun moment for me. It gave me a serious injection of energy and inspiration. YouTube sent me a little .gif celebrating the moment. I took a screengrab below to share with you. This .gif marks the halfway point towards reaching the first major target of 1K subscribers.
Why is 1K so special?
In the world of YouTube, having 1000 subscribers is the minimum to open doors behind the scenes. When a creator reaches this milestone, they gain access to tools, support, rank higher in the search engine, and their videos get shared with a wider audience. Simply put, once you reach this level, your “findability” increases and YouTube shares your work with more people.
We Reached 500 Subscribers!
During the coming months, I’ll be spending more time making video content for social media that documents the work I’m doing on the upcoming book, “Assiut Belly Dance Costume in Detail,” or “ABCD” for short. It is my hope, that I can share the process of moving through the various stages of book production. I want to share with you the phases of production and the process of moving from concept to
Will you help me get 500 more?
If you would like to help me achieve this gold, there are five things that you can do to help me.
Visit my YouTube Channel. Perhaps the most simple action is to visit my channel and watch a few videos. Watch time matters to the YouTube algorithm so if you spend a few moments on my channel, you will help give me a tiny boost. Short Video: “Belly Dance Bra Costume Design” is short and fun.
Like a Video or Two. If you enjoy my videos, tell the world! Just take a moment to click on the line button and give my video a big fat thumbs-up. Popular Videos: Check out “Bujo Notebook Custom Pen Quiver DIY” is one of my most popular videos.
Comment on a Video. Like watch-time and likes, viewer comments add credibility. It’s a bit like voting. If a “Like” is worth a vote, then a comment, even just a smiley face, multiples the like. One of my most liked videos is “Tying a Turban” a little costuming demo in the middle of a makeup challenge vlog. If you watch that demo and find it useful, tell me why in the comments.
Subscribe to my channel. However, the most direct and impactful way to help me reach my goal is to simply click through any of these links and subscribe to my channel. YouTube subscriptions are totally free to you and help me so very much. If you want to receive notifications about videos, then click on the bell icon. Here’s a little vintage history clip of Nejla Ates c. 1956.
Share videos with your friends in dance. Perhaps the most valuable action a subscriber can take is to share a video with your friends. If you find a video with valuable information, that inspires, or entertains, could you take a moment to share it on social media? That will really help me spread the word and reach new dancers and costumers around the world. The main goal of my YouTube channel since it’s beginning has always been to share the work of my friends in dance, like this video of the super-glamorous Basinah from November 2021.
Thank you for the Continued Support!
I appreciate your time checking out these are the key things that you can do – and are all absolutely free! I appreciate your support of my ongoing research, design, and publishing work. It is my hope that in the coming months there will be plenty of new quality content on my YouTube to inspire, entertain, and educate. If you haven’t yet had a chance to check out the new Behind the Scenes Vlog Series, you can find the playlist here.
Thank you for your help in reaching my goal! ~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina March 2, 2022
