Dressing for a job that necessitates taking your clothes off presents a surprisingly difficult challenge. While we take it all off on stage, dressing for success mandates a surprisingly large amount of work and effort behind the scenes. When I first started dancing I figured this would be no big deal – the whole point is getting naked, right? However, I soon discovered that in stripping there is a science to our “wardrobe” in and of itself.
Many new dancers, myself included, think that you can get away with your bottom drawer stash of alluring bra and panty sets accumulated because you are a normal woman who has had sex and wanted to look hot for her boyfriend. I had a few corsets, some garter sets, a couple robes and same lace bras and stringy panties. While these outfits did get me through the first few weeks of work, it became apparent that if I was really going to do this I needed to step up my stripper dressing game.
Strippers dress in loud outfits and big jewelry for a number of reasons. First – there are always other girls working, and you need to give the customer something to associate to you. Your regular will know you no matter what, but on a busy night when you can’t have long conversations with every single person, an outfit must cut through the haze of alcohol so that a stranger knows who you are. Secondly – we must revisit the illusion element of creating a fantasy – you are not the girl at the office, even if you look like you could be here. Within the doors of the club you are a stripper, and you need to work inside of those confines. Men don’t come to strip clubs to see what their wife would wear, or the girl cheering for a soccer team at a sports bar. Customers pay inflated drink prices and shell out dollars for a reason. Attempting to break that stereotype undercuts your every existence. Third – stripper outfits are designed for the practicality of taking them on and off frequently. Specifically intended to be discarded on stage, the outfits are built to work with large shoes and with all eyes on you. Fourth, and finally, men are visual creatures. They like things that sparkle and shine – loud, and often over the top designs catch and hold an eye. The longer he looks the easier, and often bigger, the tip.
Thus, I quickly learned that what you wear to your “getting naked” job matters just as much as it does to your smart girl job, if not more. Your outfit must flatter and get attention, shape your personal stripper brand and be able to be taken on and off multiple times in an evening. Hitting all of these goals takes a reasonable amount of forethought and effort. Here is what I’ve learned:
COVERUPS – ROBES, SKIRTS AND DRESSES
At my club we’re required to have some kind of a cover up on when we are on the floor, talking to customers. Half of the reasoning behind this rule comes from health code regulations. You are not allowed to sit in a thong on a chair at a “restaurant”, and since we do serve food, this rule governs. Hence, if you are wearing a thong and not a full panty, you need to have something covering your butt. Additionally, our club tends toward the classier level of strip clubs, and coverage increases the trend toward the illusion of dancers.
While you can’t wear only a thong on the floor, you can get away with the minimal coverage of a Brazilian or cheeky cut panty. I personally don’t like wearing just panties on the floor, especially during the day shift. I think it gives away too much, and it takes away one level of a strip tease on the floor.
I like to wear some kind of a robe or dress over any bra and panty set. While the “floor wear” should still be revealing enough to accentuate your body and sell sex appeal it allows for more to work with on stage, and creates a better tease when sitting with a client. Cover-up options can be as simple as a robe or a more “strip club traditional” dress.
A regular silk or lace robe from Victoria’s Secret actually works in this case. Obviously this is not the time for your terry cloth snuggle robe with polka dots. But a simple black robe with some lacing or simple shine lets you wear something over your shoulders and covering your backside, and if you leave it open in front still allows for a clear shot of what you’re working with.
A good stripper should also have a few stripper dresses in her collection. Perfect for weekends, stripper dresses usually mimic club wear with lots of sparkle and sequins, but with deeper cuts and shorter skirts. Usually mostly elastic, they rarely have buttons or zippers – designed to be taken off and put back on swiftly. Further, a dress eliminates the need for a bra – which can be difficult to finagle with long nails or if any type of intoxicated.
Additional alternatives include a menswear shirt, slipped over bra and panties. Stripper skirts, usually only long enough to cover your abs, work as well. Personally I believe only few strippers can pull off skirts well – any type of belly fat can be accentuated otherwise. I’m genuinely not bragging, but I’m in the minority of women with a tight enough stomach to make this look actually work. A pashmina or scarf can also be used to wrap around the butt, place on a chair before sitting, or wrap around your shoulders if it’s cold in the bar. While not the most commonly utilized, men’s shirts, skirts and scarves can all be used creatively as cover-ups.
PANTIES, THONGS & BRAS
A particular type of thong exists for strippers (once again breaking this average girl’s misconception that my regular underwear collection would suffice). A stripper thong cuts higher and rounder in back than a regular thong. Instead of meaning to be hidden under low cut jeans, a dancing thong frames your back side, helping it to look perky and plump. A lower cut in front shows more of the pubic region, accentuating your vagina when one stage. Further, they are cut wide over the actual labia, allowing you to spread your legs without anything falling out. This is particularly helpful when doing any type of pole work. Textile wise, the fabric needs to be thick and tough in case you pierce it with your shoe.
When it comes to panties, simpler is usually better. The more strings and bows – the more difficult the process of getting dressed in front of a room full of strangers. Indeed putting panties back on, while wearing six inch heels on a stage only lit with red light, requires delicate footwork. Your back needs to be against a wall or a pole, you need to put your weight on one foot, guide the other through and then switch. A good stripper must be able to do this quickly and seamlessly. Failure to do so results in appearing clumsy or drunk on stage and can stumbling through getting dressed can quickly become embarrassing. A stripper should always be an ambassador of her craft, and being able to get dressed in a coordinated manner factors into your overall finesse.
In regards to bras, I find tie up bras to be far more practical than clasp bras. Contrary to regular person life, where a bow tie bra would not give you the support or structure to get through a day in the office, a bow tie is easy to undo, fairly simple to re-tie, and can easily be incorporated into a strip tease during a dance. Most tie bras go around the back and the neck like a bikini (again, something that would never work in an office or with a regular shirt). You can untie just the back, leave the top part in its pre-arranged bow, and hang it on a hook for your dance. When dressing at the end of the set you just need to reach behind and retie. You can find tie bras that are designed in the more traditional bra like style, cutting down the shoulder blades with a singular tie in the middle of the back coming from the same cloth that runs below the breast. If you can tie this behind your back it is a good solution, but tying in front and swiveling around looks mildly amateurish on stage.
Interestingly, I find that corsets are not a stripper’s friend. While they work great for cocktail waitresses, pictures and sex, they suck for dancing. If the corset doesn’t have a fastening mechanism, it slides on over your head. To be effective, the corset is extremely tight, pushing up your boobs and sucking in your stomach – part of why they are so visually appealing. To get them on and off on stage though, usually involves some wiggling and finagling that is simply impossible to make look sexy. If the corset does have a fastening mechanism it is usually composed of many small clasps. These can be numerous and delicate. Combined with the previously mentioned nails, light and intoxication issues, they can be nearly impossible.
GARTER’S AND STOCKINGS
Garter belts, attached around the waist and then to stockings, are particularly difficult to utilize as a stripper. The attachment contraption used to attach to your stockings, thus holding them up, is way too difficult and time consuming to muster on stage. Any girl who has worn a garter set for her boyfriend knows that it takes at least 15 minutes in the bathroom to get set up before the big debut. There just isn’t time for that on a 12 minute dance set. If a stripper happens to be dead set on wearing a waste garter, they either don’t attach it to the stockings, or wear their underwear over the whole contraption, so you can take off just your panties on stage. The waist garter never comes off the body.
To wear thigh highs without a garter belt, you need to get the kind with a sticky layer on the inside and a little bit of luck so that they don’t drop on stage. A favorite of a lot of men, thigh highs must still be practical as they can easily get hit with a heel on stage, snagged on a table or door, or ripped from pressure on the toe when dancing. Mesh stockings are better for work, because a small hole will show less. The bigger the meshing, the less chance that you’ll rip them, and even if you do, even less of a chance that the rip will show. With sheer fabric, a hole will immediately become a tear and you’ll look like a mess on the floor. Plus you’ve ruined a pair of stockings in one night – a pricy endeavor. I would never wear wide mesh stockings with a boyfriend, but they do make more sense for the stage.
To have somewhere to put your money, you need actual stripper garters. Lace leg garters like those sold at normal lingerie stores are made for fucking, not holding your money. A stripper garter is very tight, doesn’t slip on your leg, and actually holds the money that customers put in. A loose garter will not only fall, but drop your money on the floor, and you’ll be lucky to ever get that back. The elastic must be tight and intact. Within these practical confines you can still make your garter pretty. I prefer elastic garters with either sequins or studs to jazz it up a bit.
SHOES
Stripper shoes are possibly the most important element to the stripper wardrobe. While ridiculous to the average female shopper’s eye, and absurd to anyone who has had to walk more than a block to work for a commute, they are actually designed with purpose. Reason number one goes back to the “men are visual creatures” argument. Sparkle, sequins, spiked heels and even flashing lights draw attention, and give them something to remember you by. Girls who stand out get more tips (this is not the profession for a wall flower) and crazy heels can be a mechanism for making a customer remember you.
Secondly, the super high heel helps a girl look taller on stage, highlights calf and leg muscle, and lengthens the appearance of the leg. Personally I don’t really need any of these things, and could get away dancing in a pair of platform Steve Madden shoes if I wanted to. I don’t want to, however, due to reason number three.
Stripper shoes must, ironically, be comfortable. Our job is to dance, and dance in our shoes. The rest of the time we are walking around the floor, or running between levels to make our showcase on various stages. The shoe must stay on during a set, be functional enough to walk in, and not cause any unnecessary discomfort. As such, most stripper shoes don’t have toes or support on the heel. Less show to skin contact leads to less blisters, and that is a VERY good thing. A simple strap over the bridge of the foot allows for less friction and blisters. The hyper slanting of the bridge assures that you won’t slide out since your entire body weight is pushing down on the shoe.
So kids, there’s the highlights. Panty and bra sets, stockings, cover-ups, garters and shoes are the fixtures of the stripper wardrobe. Obtaining and correctly wearing them constitutes a reasonably large part of being good at what I do.
Lately I’ve realized that I like about 80% of my job, and from what I can tell in the real world, that’s a pretty high percentage. Part of that 80% definitely comes from the wardrobe aspect of my work. I genuinely enjoy thinking about my outfits, trying them on and putting them together. It’s always fun to look good, and making sure I do is literally part of my job. Even if I spend some of my time off “working” to put together a certain look, it makes me happy, and I like doing it. It sure beats the hell out of going into the office to work on your billable, after all. Fuck – I’m kinda liking this stripping thing lately.
To the reader – I will follow up in the future about the accessories: hair and makeup, eyelashes, jewelry, perfume, tanning products. Additionally a science unto themselves, these elements are not to be overlooked. Staying in stripper shape and stripper shopping trip posts are likely to occur as well. Have a good weekend friends, and be safe.
Many new dancers, myself included, think that you can get away with your bottom drawer stash of alluring bra and panty sets accumulated because you are a normal woman who has had sex and wanted to look hot for her boyfriend. I had a few corsets, some garter sets, a couple robes and same lace bras and stringy panties. While these outfits did get me through the first few weeks of work, it became apparent that if I was really going to do this I needed to step up my stripper dressing game.
Strippers dress in loud outfits and big jewelry for a number of reasons. First – there are always other girls working, and you need to give the customer something to associate to you. Your regular will know you no matter what, but on a busy night when you can’t have long conversations with every single person, an outfit must cut through the haze of alcohol so that a stranger knows who you are. Secondly – we must revisit the illusion element of creating a fantasy – you are not the girl at the office, even if you look like you could be here. Within the doors of the club you are a stripper, and you need to work inside of those confines. Men don’t come to strip clubs to see what their wife would wear, or the girl cheering for a soccer team at a sports bar. Customers pay inflated drink prices and shell out dollars for a reason. Attempting to break that stereotype undercuts your every existence. Third – stripper outfits are designed for the practicality of taking them on and off frequently. Specifically intended to be discarded on stage, the outfits are built to work with large shoes and with all eyes on you. Fourth, and finally, men are visual creatures. They like things that sparkle and shine – loud, and often over the top designs catch and hold an eye. The longer he looks the easier, and often bigger, the tip.
Thus, I quickly learned that what you wear to your “getting naked” job matters just as much as it does to your smart girl job, if not more. Your outfit must flatter and get attention, shape your personal stripper brand and be able to be taken on and off multiple times in an evening. Hitting all of these goals takes a reasonable amount of forethought and effort. Here is what I’ve learned:
COVERUPS – ROBES, SKIRTS AND DRESSES
At my club we’re required to have some kind of a cover up on when we are on the floor, talking to customers. Half of the reasoning behind this rule comes from health code regulations. You are not allowed to sit in a thong on a chair at a “restaurant”, and since we do serve food, this rule governs. Hence, if you are wearing a thong and not a full panty, you need to have something covering your butt. Additionally, our club tends toward the classier level of strip clubs, and coverage increases the trend toward the illusion of dancers.
While you can’t wear only a thong on the floor, you can get away with the minimal coverage of a Brazilian or cheeky cut panty. I personally don’t like wearing just panties on the floor, especially during the day shift. I think it gives away too much, and it takes away one level of a strip tease on the floor.
I like to wear some kind of a robe or dress over any bra and panty set. While the “floor wear” should still be revealing enough to accentuate your body and sell sex appeal it allows for more to work with on stage, and creates a better tease when sitting with a client. Cover-up options can be as simple as a robe or a more “strip club traditional” dress.
A regular silk or lace robe from Victoria’s Secret actually works in this case. Obviously this is not the time for your terry cloth snuggle robe with polka dots. But a simple black robe with some lacing or simple shine lets you wear something over your shoulders and covering your backside, and if you leave it open in front still allows for a clear shot of what you’re working with.
A good stripper should also have a few stripper dresses in her collection. Perfect for weekends, stripper dresses usually mimic club wear with lots of sparkle and sequins, but with deeper cuts and shorter skirts. Usually mostly elastic, they rarely have buttons or zippers – designed to be taken off and put back on swiftly. Further, a dress eliminates the need for a bra – which can be difficult to finagle with long nails or if any type of intoxicated.
Additional alternatives include a menswear shirt, slipped over bra and panties. Stripper skirts, usually only long enough to cover your abs, work as well. Personally I believe only few strippers can pull off skirts well – any type of belly fat can be accentuated otherwise. I’m genuinely not bragging, but I’m in the minority of women with a tight enough stomach to make this look actually work. A pashmina or scarf can also be used to wrap around the butt, place on a chair before sitting, or wrap around your shoulders if it’s cold in the bar. While not the most commonly utilized, men’s shirts, skirts and scarves can all be used creatively as cover-ups.
PANTIES, THONGS & BRAS
A particular type of thong exists for strippers (once again breaking this average girl’s misconception that my regular underwear collection would suffice). A stripper thong cuts higher and rounder in back than a regular thong. Instead of meaning to be hidden under low cut jeans, a dancing thong frames your back side, helping it to look perky and plump. A lower cut in front shows more of the pubic region, accentuating your vagina when one stage. Further, they are cut wide over the actual labia, allowing you to spread your legs without anything falling out. This is particularly helpful when doing any type of pole work. Textile wise, the fabric needs to be thick and tough in case you pierce it with your shoe.
When it comes to panties, simpler is usually better. The more strings and bows – the more difficult the process of getting dressed in front of a room full of strangers. Indeed putting panties back on, while wearing six inch heels on a stage only lit with red light, requires delicate footwork. Your back needs to be against a wall or a pole, you need to put your weight on one foot, guide the other through and then switch. A good stripper must be able to do this quickly and seamlessly. Failure to do so results in appearing clumsy or drunk on stage and can stumbling through getting dressed can quickly become embarrassing. A stripper should always be an ambassador of her craft, and being able to get dressed in a coordinated manner factors into your overall finesse.
In regards to bras, I find tie up bras to be far more practical than clasp bras. Contrary to regular person life, where a bow tie bra would not give you the support or structure to get through a day in the office, a bow tie is easy to undo, fairly simple to re-tie, and can easily be incorporated into a strip tease during a dance. Most tie bras go around the back and the neck like a bikini (again, something that would never work in an office or with a regular shirt). You can untie just the back, leave the top part in its pre-arranged bow, and hang it on a hook for your dance. When dressing at the end of the set you just need to reach behind and retie. You can find tie bras that are designed in the more traditional bra like style, cutting down the shoulder blades with a singular tie in the middle of the back coming from the same cloth that runs below the breast. If you can tie this behind your back it is a good solution, but tying in front and swiveling around looks mildly amateurish on stage.
Interestingly, I find that corsets are not a stripper’s friend. While they work great for cocktail waitresses, pictures and sex, they suck for dancing. If the corset doesn’t have a fastening mechanism, it slides on over your head. To be effective, the corset is extremely tight, pushing up your boobs and sucking in your stomach – part of why they are so visually appealing. To get them on and off on stage though, usually involves some wiggling and finagling that is simply impossible to make look sexy. If the corset does have a fastening mechanism it is usually composed of many small clasps. These can be numerous and delicate. Combined with the previously mentioned nails, light and intoxication issues, they can be nearly impossible.
GARTER’S AND STOCKINGS
Garter belts, attached around the waist and then to stockings, are particularly difficult to utilize as a stripper. The attachment contraption used to attach to your stockings, thus holding them up, is way too difficult and time consuming to muster on stage. Any girl who has worn a garter set for her boyfriend knows that it takes at least 15 minutes in the bathroom to get set up before the big debut. There just isn’t time for that on a 12 minute dance set. If a stripper happens to be dead set on wearing a waste garter, they either don’t attach it to the stockings, or wear their underwear over the whole contraption, so you can take off just your panties on stage. The waist garter never comes off the body.
To wear thigh highs without a garter belt, you need to get the kind with a sticky layer on the inside and a little bit of luck so that they don’t drop on stage. A favorite of a lot of men, thigh highs must still be practical as they can easily get hit with a heel on stage, snagged on a table or door, or ripped from pressure on the toe when dancing. Mesh stockings are better for work, because a small hole will show less. The bigger the meshing, the less chance that you’ll rip them, and even if you do, even less of a chance that the rip will show. With sheer fabric, a hole will immediately become a tear and you’ll look like a mess on the floor. Plus you’ve ruined a pair of stockings in one night – a pricy endeavor. I would never wear wide mesh stockings with a boyfriend, but they do make more sense for the stage.
To have somewhere to put your money, you need actual stripper garters. Lace leg garters like those sold at normal lingerie stores are made for fucking, not holding your money. A stripper garter is very tight, doesn’t slip on your leg, and actually holds the money that customers put in. A loose garter will not only fall, but drop your money on the floor, and you’ll be lucky to ever get that back. The elastic must be tight and intact. Within these practical confines you can still make your garter pretty. I prefer elastic garters with either sequins or studs to jazz it up a bit.
SHOES
Stripper shoes are possibly the most important element to the stripper wardrobe. While ridiculous to the average female shopper’s eye, and absurd to anyone who has had to walk more than a block to work for a commute, they are actually designed with purpose. Reason number one goes back to the “men are visual creatures” argument. Sparkle, sequins, spiked heels and even flashing lights draw attention, and give them something to remember you by. Girls who stand out get more tips (this is not the profession for a wall flower) and crazy heels can be a mechanism for making a customer remember you.
Secondly, the super high heel helps a girl look taller on stage, highlights calf and leg muscle, and lengthens the appearance of the leg. Personally I don’t really need any of these things, and could get away dancing in a pair of platform Steve Madden shoes if I wanted to. I don’t want to, however, due to reason number three.
Stripper shoes must, ironically, be comfortable. Our job is to dance, and dance in our shoes. The rest of the time we are walking around the floor, or running between levels to make our showcase on various stages. The shoe must stay on during a set, be functional enough to walk in, and not cause any unnecessary discomfort. As such, most stripper shoes don’t have toes or support on the heel. Less show to skin contact leads to less blisters, and that is a VERY good thing. A simple strap over the bridge of the foot allows for less friction and blisters. The hyper slanting of the bridge assures that you won’t slide out since your entire body weight is pushing down on the shoe.
So kids, there’s the highlights. Panty and bra sets, stockings, cover-ups, garters and shoes are the fixtures of the stripper wardrobe. Obtaining and correctly wearing them constitutes a reasonably large part of being good at what I do.
Lately I’ve realized that I like about 80% of my job, and from what I can tell in the real world, that’s a pretty high percentage. Part of that 80% definitely comes from the wardrobe aspect of my work. I genuinely enjoy thinking about my outfits, trying them on and putting them together. It’s always fun to look good, and making sure I do is literally part of my job. Even if I spend some of my time off “working” to put together a certain look, it makes me happy, and I like doing it. It sure beats the hell out of going into the office to work on your billable, after all. Fuck – I’m kinda liking this stripping thing lately.
To the reader – I will follow up in the future about the accessories: hair and makeup, eyelashes, jewelry, perfume, tanning products. Additionally a science unto themselves, these elements are not to be overlooked. Staying in stripper shape and stripper shopping trip posts are likely to occur as well. Have a good weekend friends, and be safe.
