Road Trip to Bella
May. 20th, 2011 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mekyria I've been offline yesterday because I went on an a road trip with Isandria and Hadyr to Bella. And I know you guys are dying to know what the Bella store looks like and if we bought something once you'd know about the road trip, so I've been keeping it quiet. I've only been to Bella once, with RakkasahBarbara, three or four years ago and have never bought a new Bella. Click on the link for the really long story!
We gathered at the edge of Utrecht around 12.00, with us being Hadyr, Isandria and V., Isandria's 4 month old daughter who we all love and adore. She is excessively cute and has already been to her first hafla when she was 4 weeks old. AS a third generation belly dancer, she will probably be dancing in no time. We all got in and redistributed our gathered food resources: Hadyr made a refreshing Hibiscus/mint beverage, I made pasta salad (but forgot the spoons) and Isandria brought chocolate chip cookies. We were well prepared and on a mission!
The mission was to get Isandria a new costume, preferable with red/pink.
The trip went well: we had a complete stand still right before Antwerp and things got tight when V. started crying, but after 20 minutes we got moving again. We arrived around 3 pm and parked right in front of the store. The Bella store looks kind of grayish and boring on the outside, and I suspect that they do this on purpose. They are located in a narrow street with a couple of restaurants, hair salons and x-rated stores randomly scattered around. The two small windows have grey luxaflex and in the window an old, dusty darbouka, a cheap Turkish hip scarf and a practice top are keeping each other company.
Enter through the front door and you are in a tiny space, surrounded by racks of tops, skirts and hip scarfs. You have to dive deeper into the store to find the real gems: the pro costumes! I say deeper which might give you the impression that the store is big, but it is in fact so tiny that it is amazing three people can be en there at the same time. The front room is 3x3 and the back room is 3x3, and this space contains gas/electric heaters, a large desk, a changing room and cleverly stored costumes and Michel, a grey haired middle aged man who handles all the orders and who is incredibly sweet and thoughtful.
We told him about our mission, he looked at Isandria and told us right away that most of his costumes are cup size C. She tried the two costumes with a larger cup size, and after short deliberation she decided to do a custom order. Michel took an unadorned bra base to decide on the bra size and shape, and we started browsing through the costumes for examples on fabric and beading. He has fabric samples available on a color chart, but we needed to put the colors next to each other and layer them to see what it would look like.
After deciding on the colors, Michel sat down and started asking questions and sketching a design based on our answers. I can't say too much about the design but it will be beautiful, with red, two tones of pink and holographic silver. He was very meticulous about the design, starting with the bra design, continuing with the belt, skirt and accessories. They agreed on a budget of 800 euro (1150 usd) and he promised that the costume will be ready in 6-8 weeks, depending on how long it would take to clear customs.
Hadyr and I had fun trying on several mouthwatering costumes. Photography is not allowed inside the store, so no pictures, just descriptions:
1. started with a burgundy costume with green, burgundy and black beading and the most amazing medallions with swarovski crystals. The medallions were hanging down from the bra and skirt attached by several strands of clear plastic beads in matching colors. It gave an amazing extra bit of movement to the costume. Alas, too short and too dark for me.
2. yellow costume with synthetic silk skirt in a yellow/red/green print with huge flowers. I completely fell in love with this costume. It had an all cut-out bra covered in swarovski stones and the skirt was just too cute. The belt was attached to the skirt and had a big cut-out on the side, but all in good taste. But too small in the upper hip and the skirt was 10 cm/4"too short. This was a one off costume, so no possibility to make a longer skirt.
3. turquoise/green costume with brown/green beading. This costume had inserts with the flower fabric and was longer then the previous one. It had a lace type of fabric incorporated in the beading with embroidered flowers, enhanced by beads, sequins and crystals. It was utterly perfect. It fitted my upper hip, the bra worked well for me, but... the skirt was 4 cm too short. I'm not sure if I should be happy that I'm tall as it saved me from buying that costume, or hate being tall because the skirt was still too short. Sigh. It's probably for the best...
4. Hadyr and I both tried a all black costume with black lace, black beading and black pleated fabric. Michel was delighted with the costume even though we both had our doubts (black on black on a dimly lit stage would be like almost invisible dancing). It looked stunning of course, but the fact that it was black made us both go 'eh, no.'
5. Hadyr tried a red velvet costume (Michel: for the really beautiful costumes, we don't use velvet. Lycra is better to show the beading) with yellow, orange, red and blue beading. Yes, those are unlikely colors to put together, but it worked so well that we all sighed when she came out of the dressing room. But she already has a red costume, so once more a no go. By that time it was 18.30.
In the end Isandria payed her down payment for the costume and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street with the most courteous waiters ever. Having V. with us helped too: she is so incredibly sweet and pretty that everyone loves her. We got back into the car at 20.15 and arrived back in Utrecht around 22.40, dead tired but overall happy. Mission accomplished!
We gathered at the edge of Utrecht around 12.00, with us being Hadyr, Isandria and V., Isandria's 4 month old daughter who we all love and adore. She is excessively cute and has already been to her first hafla when she was 4 weeks old. AS a third generation belly dancer, she will probably be dancing in no time. We all got in and redistributed our gathered food resources: Hadyr made a refreshing Hibiscus/mint beverage, I made pasta salad (but forgot the spoons) and Isandria brought chocolate chip cookies. We were well prepared and on a mission!
The mission was to get Isandria a new costume, preferable with red/pink.
The trip went well: we had a complete stand still right before Antwerp and things got tight when V. started crying, but after 20 minutes we got moving again. We arrived around 3 pm and parked right in front of the store. The Bella store looks kind of grayish and boring on the outside, and I suspect that they do this on purpose. They are located in a narrow street with a couple of restaurants, hair salons and x-rated stores randomly scattered around. The two small windows have grey luxaflex and in the window an old, dusty darbouka, a cheap Turkish hip scarf and a practice top are keeping each other company.
Enter through the front door and you are in a tiny space, surrounded by racks of tops, skirts and hip scarfs. You have to dive deeper into the store to find the real gems: the pro costumes! I say deeper which might give you the impression that the store is big, but it is in fact so tiny that it is amazing three people can be en there at the same time. The front room is 3x3 and the back room is 3x3, and this space contains gas/electric heaters, a large desk, a changing room and cleverly stored costumes and Michel, a grey haired middle aged man who handles all the orders and who is incredibly sweet and thoughtful.
We told him about our mission, he looked at Isandria and told us right away that most of his costumes are cup size C. She tried the two costumes with a larger cup size, and after short deliberation she decided to do a custom order. Michel took an unadorned bra base to decide on the bra size and shape, and we started browsing through the costumes for examples on fabric and beading. He has fabric samples available on a color chart, but we needed to put the colors next to each other and layer them to see what it would look like.
After deciding on the colors, Michel sat down and started asking questions and sketching a design based on our answers. I can't say too much about the design but it will be beautiful, with red, two tones of pink and holographic silver. He was very meticulous about the design, starting with the bra design, continuing with the belt, skirt and accessories. They agreed on a budget of 800 euro (1150 usd) and he promised that the costume will be ready in 6-8 weeks, depending on how long it would take to clear customs.
Hadyr and I had fun trying on several mouthwatering costumes. Photography is not allowed inside the store, so no pictures, just descriptions:
1. started with a burgundy costume with green, burgundy and black beading and the most amazing medallions with swarovski crystals. The medallions were hanging down from the bra and skirt attached by several strands of clear plastic beads in matching colors. It gave an amazing extra bit of movement to the costume. Alas, too short and too dark for me.
2. yellow costume with synthetic silk skirt in a yellow/red/green print with huge flowers. I completely fell in love with this costume. It had an all cut-out bra covered in swarovski stones and the skirt was just too cute. The belt was attached to the skirt and had a big cut-out on the side, but all in good taste. But too small in the upper hip and the skirt was 10 cm/4"too short. This was a one off costume, so no possibility to make a longer skirt.
3. turquoise/green costume with brown/green beading. This costume had inserts with the flower fabric and was longer then the previous one. It had a lace type of fabric incorporated in the beading with embroidered flowers, enhanced by beads, sequins and crystals. It was utterly perfect. It fitted my upper hip, the bra worked well for me, but... the skirt was 4 cm too short. I'm not sure if I should be happy that I'm tall as it saved me from buying that costume, or hate being tall because the skirt was still too short. Sigh. It's probably for the best...
4. Hadyr and I both tried a all black costume with black lace, black beading and black pleated fabric. Michel was delighted with the costume even though we both had our doubts (black on black on a dimly lit stage would be like almost invisible dancing). It looked stunning of course, but the fact that it was black made us both go 'eh, no.'
5. Hadyr tried a red velvet costume (Michel: for the really beautiful costumes, we don't use velvet. Lycra is better to show the beading) with yellow, orange, red and blue beading. Yes, those are unlikely colors to put together, but it worked so well that we all sighed when she came out of the dressing room. But she already has a red costume, so once more a no go. By that time it was 18.30.
In the end Isandria payed her down payment for the costume and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street with the most courteous waiters ever. Having V. with us helped too: she is so incredibly sweet and pretty that everyone loves her. We got back into the car at 20.15 and arrived back in Utrecht around 22.40, dead tired but overall happy. Mission accomplished!
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bella
Date: 2011-06-12 06:25 am (UTC)Re: bella
Date: 2011-06-12 07:23 am (UTC)