Russian folk scarves are work of art!

These wool and silk scarves are a form of traditional folk art from Russia. They are made at the Pavlovsky Posad factory near Moscow.

These wonderful works of art are still made in wool and silk and come in a variety of sizes and colors. At about $40, they are also a great bargain.

You can find these and similar scarves at www.russianlife.com and at www.rusclothing.com.

I am inspired by the artistry of Ukraine folk costumes

Creative inspiration can come from from lots of different sources. The last few days I have been interested in researching folk costumes from around the world. I started to become interested in this because of the tribal belly dance community, which borrows some folk styles from various cultures.

Some of these "folks" make beautiful clothes. I guess that they are spending more time sewing and less time watching TV and surfing the internet like I do!

(photos from www.ukrainiansite.com)

My beautiful dance teacher

Here is my belly dance teacher at a restaurant where she dances sometimes. She is looking lovely in a costume that she designed and made herself.

Some cool flats for spring

I've been looking for some flat or low heeled shoes that I can wear with skirts for spring. Here are some good ones that I found on Zappos.com. The bright red with one ankle strap is from Pour La Victoire: Liona for $69.00. The black strappy one is the Pete from DV by Dolce Vita. The pointy dark red one is the Lucia from Romantic Soles. The purple with the ankle strap is probably my favorite. Its the Myls by Gabriella Rocha.

I LOVE this dancer!

These pictures are of Zoe Jakes, from her MySpace page. I jsut discovered this belly dancer on You Tube and she is just fascinating. Her style is beautiful, but a bit spooky. At times she moves live a zombie or something out of a horror movie. And check out these costumes!!! Everything she wears is totally awaesome and original. She dances with several well-known groups, including Bellydance Superstars and The Indigo. I highly recommend that you check her out.

Dries Van Noten has great artsy silk clothes.

I loved his multicolored silk prints for spring, and some of these for Fall 2009 are also pretty great. I believe that this European designer actually lives and works in Singapore, and you can definitely see the Asian influence in his designs. Having been to Singapore myself, I have been in love with painted silk clothes ever since.

e K clothing has great dance clothes reasonably priced!

A few weeks ago I started taking belly dancing lessons and I am becoming quite addicted. Its also a good excuse to buy myself some cute dance clothes. The girls in my group wear latin dance pants to practice in, so I had to get some also. I discovered this great store on the internet at http://www.ekclothing.com/. They are located in Las Angelos and have cute clothing and shoes at very reasonable prices. The latin dance pants were between $30-$40, whereas other websites had similar pants for about $70. I recommend that you check out this store whether you are a dancer, or just want to look like one!