Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Tear away stripper pants: Part 1 - Why

So I'm doing a 2 part series on tear away stripper pants.  Why two?  Well Part 1 - Why is the background story to the making of, while Part 2 - How-to will be the how-to make stripper pants from a pattern or Part 3 - Converting Jeans into Stripper Pants.  This way if you care why I started making stripper pants you can get the story but if you want to just learn how you can skip the why and go on to making your own.

Why would I ever want to make tear away stripper pants?  It's actually pretty simple, I was fulfilling someone's dream. :)  Actually I won't go that far.  As you have read in the past, there is a man-child I know whom I call Jailbait (who by the way is actually legal but still the name applies in my old teacher brain).  This all begins with him.  I'm no innocent.  I have been to strip bars in my day but never have I ever wanted to make/wear/own tear away pants.  However, JB has been talking about wanting to own such a thing.  How could I knowing that I could make a dream come true deny him?

JB didn't have any idea that I actually sew so it's not like he asked me.  Since I'm staying home with Ravebaby, I've been looking to get back into my old crafty self.  I thought the challenge would be a good brain exercise.  Now my bestest friend, Artsy-Momma, can make anything!  I mean anything.  Just mention it and she will make it.  She doesn't need a pattern or anything.  Not so with me.  If the pattern doesn't exist then I can't make it.  So tear away pants were going to be a real challenge for me.  For some reason neither Simplicity nor McCall's have a stripper pattern line!  I know right.  I bet the market is huge.  But back to topic, I offered to make JB the pants.

Since this would be a first for me, I had to watch "Sexy and I know it" by LMFAO several times to try to get an idea of exactly what he might have in mind.  I kept trying to pause the video on the actual stripping scene but youtube kept stopping on the junk rather than the pants.  So that approach didn't help.  I did some internet research.  Surely someone would have posted step by step directions.  No such luck.  Wiki-how did have a step by step but I didn't really get it.  So I decided the best way to do it was just start from scratch.  I found a pattern, fabric, and velcro (hook and loop) but now I needed measurements.

Strangely for a person who claimed he wanted something so badly, JB worked very hard to avoid getting measured!  It took me 3 days to finally get that boy measured.  I own a self-measure measuring tape but either he couldn't or wouldn't get it on right and give me a number so I finally just put my arms around him and got the numbers.  This then lead to the discussion of how tight should these fit?  (Oh I also decided to make shorts since this is a prototype; no point in wasting fabric on something that doesn't work.)  I decided to go smaller.  I mean a stripper doesn't typically wear loose clothes besides these are a prototype.

Once I got started on the actual construction, I took about 3 hours to make the prototype.  Again, I had a few stops and starts.  There was much discussion on whether to use snaps or velcro.  In the end we went with velcro since JB actually wanted velcro and the shorts were for him so he got what he wanted.  Shocking, I know.  I think the shorts are actually tighter than I thought they would be since he did complain about the tightness.  No one has actually seen the shorts in final form on JB.  In fact, the shorts are still in my purse since I had to finish them at home rather than at the fitting.

JB still wants pants.  Pants were always the actual goal.  I'm still not sure that we've worked all the kinks out of the prototype.  I mean we need to see if they will tear-off without tearing up the shorts!  But I will say that we at least have a working prototype.  There is talk of turning a pair of khakis into tear-away pants.  We'll see.  If it took 3 days to get measurements, I'm sure if I leave JB, he'll take 3 months.  My guess I'll have to kidnap him and take him to the store to pick out some pants or I'll have to use my ill-gotten measurements and pick some out.

To be continued . . .   

You can see the velcro.  JB refuses to pose so this will have to do.


  1. Heeheehee so happy I've been witness to all of JB and your tactics.....though I'm still anti his nickname :) haha

  2. I believe they mostly JB's. I know now that I think about Jailbait won't be my first choice but it's set now. Until he does first public performance and then I'll switch to his stage name.

  3. I googled stripper costume tear away pants and I got your blog. I need to make a pair for a high school play that starts tomorrow night (talk about jail bait!!) No sense in doing last week what I could put off until tonight. Anyway, even though you have not made pants yet, you gave me a laugh and the hope that I will be successful. Thanks!!!