Tits and Tassels

Say hello to miss Lynn Haven!

From the dawn of time people have had an obsession with boobies, tits, Tatas... if you’ve got a great rack, Burlesque is the place for you! The more curves the better! But what happens in burlesque when you want to further accentuate your Tatas? Tassels… That’s what happens, tassels!

Tassels are an essential piece of Burlesque attire and they definitely do accentuate your assets. Long hanging or flowing tassels allow a dancer to More effectively grab the attention of their audience.

I distinctly remember the New York burlesque Festival some years ago I got to perform on the same stage as Tigger, a New York-based performer who has one long tassel at the end of his male Merkin. A.k.a. at the end of his penis. And let me tell you what he could do with that tassel I have never seen before, or since! He was astounding!

But generally tassels are designed to draw attention to specific parts of the body by way of extra motion or movement. This is why we use them. Yes of course they’re beautiful and fun and can be luxurious.

There are several different kinds of tassels. If you scroll through the photos you’ll see many different styles of tassels that I myself have worn ove the years.

One of the most popular and least expensive style tassels is chainette fringe. From there they go up in price and luxury from plastic beads, glass beads, crystal, all the way up to the extravagant Swarovski tassels. Each style has its place in burlesque history and offers a beautiful and unique look.

But the prize goal of wearing tassels for the adventurous performer is to be able to twirl them! There’s an open debate on which type of tassel is better for twirling… For years I swore that chainette fringe tassels we’re terrible for tassel twirling but I realized I actually had poorly made Pasties with poorly made tassels, for years I used the most expensive swarovski tassels I could find, it did not seem to help my ability to twirl, I’ve come to the conclusion that the tassels don’t necessarily make the performer, the performer makes the tassels. But there is definitely something to be said for a tassel that is heavy enough to maintain a nice twirl but light enough to not tear off the pastie. That’s the dream tassel.

A basic tassel twirl is really nothing more than shimmying your shoulders right?!

Wrong... yes, you need to shimmy your shoulders but the important part is to get the tassels to twirl completely around the pasty, not just do it once but to do it over and over and over and over again. And the longer you shimmy the more you gain momentum. Arm placement is incredibly important as well, it’s very difficult to shimmy if your arms are down or if they’re too far up. Holding your arms out to your sides and trying to find an elegant pose with your wrists and hands Is a good tip. (Basically the look you’re going for is that you’re holding a piece of tissue paper between your thumb and pointer finger. Very gentle, lead with your wrist.)

Unfortunately, not all of us can make this happen. Not all of us can achieve that motion. In teaching tassel twirling, I have had several women who have legitimate health issues that prevent them from twirling or being able to show me that fast, usually it’s a heart disease or heart surgery that we have to be careful about, sometimes breast augmentation will help or hinder your tassel twirling depending on where you are in your healing process, basically if you’ve had any sort of surgery, it’s going to be very difficult until your body heals and can handle the jostling. I suggest you shimmy within your comfort zone. I love a good shimmy, anytime of the day, it breaks up the monotony and sometimes it shakes off the evil spirits. But do it within your comfort zone. It doesn’t always have to be the perfect shimmy with the tassels twirling completely around over and over again, sometimes it can just be a nice gentle sway. No matter how you do it, if you put your back into it, if you do it from your soul, if your intention is there, you will achieve the perfect shimmy for you.