Getting the right stripper look for each stripclub

An exotic dancer's job is based on looks.  Yeah, sales and attitude come into it, but the right look is key.  That doesn't mean that a girl needs a boobjob, or fake tan, or locks as blonde as Rapunzel.  But it's important to realise that you need the right look - the right look for the night, the right look for the guys coming in, the guys you want to attract, and for the club itself.

Firstly, if you don't have the right look for the club then they won't hire you, or they'll perhaps tell you to sharpen up before your inaugural shift.  That's what happened to me in my first dancing job - I was being hired as a hostess but they said I looked too young.  It's true - I looked proper jailbait at 18/19 years old.

Secondly, it's nice to fit in.  The girls in any club will always look at you a bit funny when you first start - but that's the same as anyplace, right? New school, new office, new pub...  Well whilst it's nice to stand out and look special - perhaps be the only redhead, have the biggest breasts, the shakiest arse, the longest, thickest hair - you still have to make sure that you rock the look which is THE LOOK for you.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what works for someone - or somewhere - or sometime - else, may not work all the time.  If you are auditioning for an upmarket club, then make sure you look like you take care of yourself.  You have to be immaculate.  No visible roots on those highlights.  Some nice shiny diamante jewellery.  

Your clients will be expecting girls to have a certain look - if its a busy club full of lads on the lash, channel a lads mag pin-up and throw in a few fantasy outfits for good measure.  If its busy midweek attracting business clients, then look groomed - the girlfriend that got away, the supermodel they lust after on billboards, that cute girl from the front desk.  A little black dress, stockings, whoosh those GHDs over your hair.  Turning up on a Tuesday looking like a streetwalker with patent boots and pillarbox red lips may sound like it will make you money, but in reality many men will just be scared off.

If you are feeling downbeat, make your look safe.  Lock-up any outfits which look cheap, hold bad associations, or feel tatty.  Bring out those old favourites, and perhaps cheer yourself up with some new jewellery or expensive lingerie.  A pair of stockings from Walford can be bought from Selfridges for £20, a fancy diamante ring that makes you smile every time you look at it costs under a tenner from anywhere on the high street.

if you are on stage a lot, invest in the ultimate stripper thong.  Yes you read that right - THE ULTIMATE LAP DANCER G-STRING, the kind which blows all those other butts on stage away.  AWAY!  In picking a thong, you have several considerations;

• BRIGHT ; make your thong so bright that it shines from 50 yards away - because that's how far from your naked booty your customer is sitting.  Get your dancer pal to order a drink form the bar and watch you on stage. If she is not blinded, the thong is wrong. Flouro or crystals need to be maxed.
• DIAMANTE - Look, crystals catch the light, and you will be standing in lots and lots of spot lights when you are on stage, so ignore the chafe and Swarovski your arse. Your spangly crotch will thank you for it once those notes start getting shoved in the elastic...
• CURVES I really don't understand all these thong coming onto the market that go straight across your bum. It makes even the most well toned exotic dancer look flabby and fat. Buy the dental floss that curves up, or for the very least, pull it up across your butt cheeks.
• BUM BUM BUM I've given a million lap dances, and men fall into two camps with me.  They are either an ass or a tit man.  So why so many lapdancers pay no attention to their pants is beyond me.  Pay attention to your pants! If you are tired, bored, need to pick your nose, cough, yawn, or all of the above, you will need to turn around and wiggle your butt. So make your arse a joy to see. 
• PROLONGING LAP DANCES Look, this is easy-peasy - the longer it takes for you to strip, the bigger likelihood that you will get a 2nd or more lap dance.  Thats another 20 in your pocket. So play with those panties.
• LABELS Please for the love of Bacchus (God of Debauchery), pretty please, cut the bloody labels out of your pants.  Stripper pants have a lot of wear and tear, and a short shelf life, so if you haven't bought a job lot from the outfit guys that pop up occasionally, a dancer is more likely o wear Primark than La Perla.  Just cut the label out so that the guy who just dropped a grand on you in VIP doesn't think 'CHEAP!'  He wants to stare at your beautiful curves, not the fruits of child labour....

If your look is not working, check out what the top-earners are doing.  And copy it. 

Well they do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

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.

London Slut Walk - Stand up & be a slut

So I'm a stripper from London, and proud of it - but will I join those who say they are proud to be a slut in London?
The London Slut Walk is to be held on the 4th June 2011 by the way, if you feel like ambling along in fishnets under a subversively named banner through the streets of central London.  It sounds like it could be quite fun really - getting all dressed up in your finest sluttiest togs, a sun-filled day out with a gaggle of girls - but it has a deeper political meaning.
For those who are unsure, the Slut Walk is part of a broader worldwide movement which was sparked by a Toronto policeman lecturing about the dangers surrounding rape.  I'm sure that the poor guy had a lot more to say to keep those college girls safe, but he'll only ever be remembered for one little aside, a mere throwaway comment; "women should avoid dressing like sluts".
Well, they should avoid dressing like sluts to avoid getting raped - thats what he said, basically, and boy is the poor ol' PC plod in a lot of hot water for saying it.

My last post or so discussed - or flaunted in a particularly boastful, look-at-me slutty manner - about the POWER that lay behind the standout slut outfit, and how something similar should be in every stripper's arsenal.
And then I noticed the comments in the media - 'slut' was being reclaimed for common parlance, like 'queer' was for gays (when will happy people reclaim the word 'gay', huh?- only joking)
What really tickled me at first was that so many wanted to be able to wear slutty clothes without the fear of getting raped.  Surely a slutty outfit is there to excite and arouse sexual desire in others - a corset and thong are not worn for their comfort or practicality.  You can't nip down to the shop in a pair of 6" perspex stiletto's, your money rolled up in a lacy garter across your thigh.  A latex jumpsuit was not invented because you can easily dance in it - or take a piss in a cramped cubicle.  Surely you wanted sexual attention - surely you are asking for it when you are dressed like a slut?
No.  No for two reasons - the first and most obvious is that no woman wants to be raped with impunity by randoms against her will.
But also no because, my view of a slutty outfit and what they do is completely and utterly subjective.  For christ's sake - I'm a stripper, looking like a slut is part of my job.
But if you are not a stripper, and still want to wear heels and fake tan and push-up bras and short skirts and pout provocatively in your £20 designer lipgloss - well why not?  You are a woman looking beautiful and enjoying herself.  A bit of attention might be nice, sure - but sexual assault?  Come on.  That would totally spoil a night out.

I think I've just talked myself into strolling through London on the 4th of June - but I'll leave my standout slut outfit at home and instead walk to reclaim sexy outfit wearing for sluts and non-sluts at the London Slut Walk.

The Standout Slut Outfit

Why look like a slut when you're a dancer? Well, the major problem for a girl trying to attract a guy when standing in a room full of beautiful women is that she is standing in a room full of beautiful women.  Like a peacock with it’s brilliant plumed tail, strippers must find ways to stand out. For times of emergency, break the glass – and pull on your STANDOUT SLUT OUTFIT!!!

A standout slut outfit needs to be composed of two main elements;

It must make a girl stand out from the others

It must scream slutty

The standout slut outfit works a charm if used properly.  You have to be feeling fairly confident and good about yourself or else it can backfire and you will be back to square one in hustling terms. (You don't want to look like a slut if you are feeling crappy - it will screw with your mojo and you will go home feeling cheap and deflated.) It should be used like a little black dress (LBD) – they are both easy choices, with little thought/effort or forward preparation required.  You literally pull it on, and voila! You are ready to go hustle.

For an outfit to stand out, you have to think bright.  A stripper will never be a standout slut if she wears a black lingerie set – that’s the LBD category, and half the girls in the club will be wearing their LBD failsafe on any given night.

White, flouros and glittery numbers work well here.

Lace and fishnet details are great, and helps show a lot of skin.

 An ideal standout slut outfit would be an all white lingerie twopiece with stockings set off against a dirty caramel tan and plenty of bling jewellery

 Or a racy red number covered in Swarvoski crystals, with shiny slick patent shoes or boots, and set off with a feather boa – just totally outrageously slutty, like a street hooker.  

But you have to not only channel the standout slut in your outfit, you have to channel the right kind of attitude to go with it.  Less abused and battered victim, more a ball-breaking, go-getting slut who is reclaiming the word slut and would march at the front of a Toronto Slut Walk.