Tuesday 6 September 2011

Why do I have such a big stripper outfit wardrobe?

I have a HUGE suitcase under my bed which is filled with all of my old stripper outfits. Like a perverted hoarder, I just can't seem to throw them away.  (To be fair, I'm still the same UK 6/8  that I was when I started).

The reason why lapdancers will have a lot of outfits - anything between 5 and 50 - is not because we are all stereotypical shopping mad women with a lingerie fetish.  (Quite the opposite in fact.  Many dancers will scrimp on their outfits, wearing the same old favourites until they fall apart, and save their earnings for shopping for clothes to wear in the 'real world'.)  We build-up a selection because the rules for what we are allowed to wear are constantly changing.  Yes you heard right - strippers have rules on what is and isn't acceptable to wear in the workplace!!!  Each club will have it's own 'dress code', which covers everything from the shoes on her manicured feet to the type of thong that clings to her pubis.  These rules will get updated (read changed drastically) every year or so for several reasons;
  • The girls stretch the rules so that they can reveal as much as possible.  Show me a girl in a floorlength dress and I'lll show you a dress with slits all over and only the thinnest trail of ribbon touching the floor.  Still floorlength!
  • The dressmakers that sell directly in the clubs get the rules changed so that most lapdances are forced to buy a different outfit to adhere to the new regulations.  The managers that changed these rules will probably get a cut of this income.
  • The boss will see something he really doesn't like and will change the rules to something more draconian in a knee-jerk reaction.  Stripper lore is that Peter Stringfellow once insisted that all girls wore delicate mesh/lacey underwear, till he saw a girl on stage in such a sheer thong that you could see her bits in perfect clarity.  He immediately banned anything that was sheer, so all of his 70+ dancers had to buy new underwear - difficult in London which at the time had nil stripper supply stores.  Annoyingly, the rules were changed back months later.
  • A new house mum/manager will start and blitz the girls dress code in an effort to make it more classy/user friendly/inventive/fantasy.
In addition, most dancers will work at a variety of clubs in their dancing career, and need a selection of tempting outfits to accommodate the variance.

Of course, we are girls, and girls can be extremely picky, so even if we buy a new outfit, if it doesn't 'feel or look right' when we are out on the floor, or if it's a nightmare to dance in and take off, then it will get resigned to the bottom of the heap with all the other rejects....  many strippers wear the same dress night after night, buying an identical replacement when it falls apart, as it's the one which works for them!  

I pulled out my suitcase this morning to go through them and see if there was anything that took my fancy for tonight.  I'm surprised by how much fabric my early dancing outfits used to have.  I've obviously got a lot more confident in showing off my body.  Now I'm happy in a little lingerie set with dental floss knickers.

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