if you want to save money buying a bellydance costume in Egypt, better read this post:

organising my old photos, I found this photo ... me with the famous BellyDance costume designer Madam Abla on my first visit to Egypt. I have 5 BellyDance dresses from her, and each cost me more than 1000€. Nowadays you do not find that expensive dresses, just because they do them in a low class production. Her dresses were amazing with all high quality costumes, and I say were because the pass the way in 2007. I am sure God has her on Heven

Yvette Smith that's true costumes now are made so cheaply in China...when I buy my flamenco dresses I get them from Spain they are so beautiful...lately I been making my own belly dancing costumes...

Amora Shams yes, but also in Egypt most of the bellydance dresses you can find are low quality nowadays. I know the places in Cairo where to buy the good quality ones. I take my BBDC students there if they can afford them. The last student I had teaching in Cairo, was a spanish private student, at the beginning she only wanted to buy one dress, so I took her to the best costume designer, because when you buy just one, you better waste your money in a dress that will last you all your dance career and that has to be so amazing that everyone watching you will say "wow", so i took her to my favorite designer who is family of madam Abla, and my student end up buying 8 of her costumes because they were all gorgeous, she loved them all, and I managed to get them for lowest fee the designer accepted. Normally a teacher gets commission from students, but not me. I ask always the designers and shop owners to give to my students the fees they want to get (without my commission) so this is how they get low fees for their dresses. I am a known teacher in Cairo, and I am a respected teacher towards the costume designers and shop owners because I don't get commissions from my students, and everyone else does.

Another thing is when I bring a dress from Egypt to Spain, because that dress takes a space and a weight on my suitcase, and some times I have to pay extra for the extra weight when I travel, so this is why I charge standard costume price to buy a dress from me. But in Egypt, is different.