Raves and music festivals are great places to bring explore your creativity, how about creating your very own DIY rave halter tops? YESIRAVE! has created the following DIY guide so that you can try creating unique and personal rave halter tops for your next rave.
Popular choices of DIY rave halter tops
Depending on how crafty you are or how much creativity you want to put into your DIY rave halter top you have among some options the following:
Crochet
Crochet clothing is among the most advanced DIY rave halter top option, but if you commit to go for it, you will for sure rock that rave or music festival. You can opt for plain color wool or yarn or dig deep into multiple colors or options in the market. When it comes to the base color of your DIY raver halter top, you will find the most options in wool or yarn. Definitely worth looking into if you have thought about it before. What better way to remember an epic rave than with a DIY rave crochet halter top!
Over-size shirt designs
A less crafty but equally baller option is to make a design out of a over-size t-shirt. The time to you would need to design the t-shirt is also significantly lower than that which you would need for creating a top from scratch (like the crochet option above). Some popular t-shirt designs (rated easy to hard) are:
- Muscle tee: simply cutting the shoulder strap to the desired length to allow a wider sleeveless shoulder width.
- Collar necks extension: if the muscle tee is not sufficient, try widening the collar by simply cutting it or changing the shape (like turning a round-shaped collar into V-neck). You could also cut the collar in a specific pattern and leave a string or a few strings of fabric in the collar to give it a more raging look.
- Turn it into a tank: cut the left-over fabric into strings and either braid them or just tie them into bigger knots on the back of the shirt. Bringing the extremes together in the middle, turning it into a tank shape with a cool twist given by the left-over fabric.
- Crop it up: want to go further and make it also a cropped top? Try cutting a straight line in the middle of the bottom half of the shirt. Having the bottom half split up will help into tying a knot in the middle to crop the DIY rave halter top to a shorter length.
- Fringe it up: cutting different portions of the shirt into strings will definitely give you a trippy look. You can opt for something simple. For example, only cutting the bottom half of the shirt into strings. Or something more complex, like tying the multiple strings together to create a pattern. This is actually quite easy to do. All you need to do is work from top to bottom. Start by tying the strings next to each other (leaving as much space as you want), then repeat on the next level. Repeat until you finish the string length or just for a few levels to leave some strings loose.
No shirt, no problem!
Last but not least, the easiest option, is to find an over-size scarf, bandana, pashmina, or beach wrap, then tie it up real hard and secured it around your back. Maybe some designs or fabrics are not available in an old t-shirt. This option still looks great and as your base, you can still work it up to give it extra touches.
Rave designs for DIY rave halter tops
Band, shows, movies, etc.
Maybe you already have a t-shirt with a specific background that you love and you would like only to create a more ravy look out of it. This option is also less time-consuming than the ones that follow. If you have a specific idea in mind, it will also likely be easier to find a t-shirt with this theme rather than creating it yourself.
Tie-dye
However, you can also opt for plain white (or any other color) oversized shirt to create your design on. Tie-dye is greatly popular and extremely fun to create. Unless you are planning to use the special paint that stains into darker tones, white is usually the safest color of shirt to go for. Grab the middle of the shirt and twist it around until go have a round and wrapped shirt. Then, secure it with elastic bands. Finally, dye the shirt either using a bucket to place the different colors and dip your shirt or with containers containing the different color dyes. Start with the lightest color and move to the darkest. Then, let dry for a whole day.
The artist in you
If you are more artistic, maybe you would like to create a bunch of cool spacey or PLUR doodles. For this option make sure to place cardboard inside the shirt as the paint can be passed to the other side of the shirt. The cardboard will prevent this. For painting, make sure you have specialized fabric paint. Anything else you can run the risk of it fading away. Let the paint try or speed up the process with a blow dryer.
Also, all of the above is an option! You could take an existing shirt with a design, tie-dyed it, and then create on top of it more paintings and statements. Because you may miscalculate the size before cutting the shirt apart, we highly recommend doing the painting step last. Then, your shirt is from the size and design perspective complete. You will not be cutting out cool patterns or figures that you did not foresee before.
Thank you for reading! We hope we have inspired you to try our DIY rave halter tops at your next rave or festival. Who knows? Maybe you will even come up with some crazy new design yourself. Let us know in the comments what your DIY rave halter top looks like!
Tatianna Rodriguez has been in the rave community throughout her life. Each month she visits a new country around the world to explore their rave traditions and beliefs. She is excited to help you learn more about the rave and music festival scene.