Fashion Tape

This page is not about video tape — it is about the tapes the fashion industry and fashion consumers actually use. Fashion tape, sometimes referenced as cleavage tape, dress tape or lingerie tape, is a double-sided adhesive tape used to secure the edges of a strapless dress or top to the skin, or to hold bra straps in place on shoulders, keeping a garment where it belongs and avoiding a wardrobe malfunction.

Fashion Tape: The Wearer's Adhesive

The consumer product is simple and specific: a skin-safe double-sided adhesive, sold in strips or rolls, applied between fabric and skin at necklines, hems and straps. It may also be referred to as toupee tape or wig tape, a similar double-sided tape intended for a different function — securing a hairpiece. The shared principle is temporary, removable adhesion strong enough for an evening and gentle enough for skin.

Used well, fashion tape is invisible insurance: it stops a wrap dress gaping, keeps a strapless bodice from migrating, and anchors a slipping strap. Used badly — on delicate silk, or left on fabric — it can mark a garment, which is why testing on an inside seam allowance is the trade's standard advice.

Tapes in the Clothing Industry

Beyond the adhesive there are many different types of tape used in the fashion industry, most of them woven rather than sticky. Twill tape is a flat twill-woven ribbon of cotton, linen, polyester or wool, used in sewing and tailoring to reinforce seams, make casings, bind edges and make sturdy ties for closing garments; it is often used for the draw cords of pants and hoodies, and for ties on hospital gowns and other garments.

The manufacturer directories linked from this page map the full family: bias binding tape, cotton tape, curing and wrapping tape, elastic tapes, gripper tapes, hook and eye tapes, hook and loop tapes, jacquard tapes, Kevlar tapes, knitted tape, leather suede tapes, multi colour tape, name tapes, nylon tapes, organza tape, packing tapes, piping tapes, plain tapes, polyester tapes, rayon tapes, reflective tapes, ribbon tapes, rubber tape, satin tapes, seam tapes, Teflon tapes, TPU elastic reverie tape, velvet tapes and woven polyester tapes, plus the clothing tape manufacturers directory itself. Fashion tapes have zero to do with video tapes — although fashion videos can be recorded on VHS or Beta tape, as the fashion videos summary remembers.

Tape in the Sample Room

The woven tapes share one virtue the adhesive cannot offer: permanence under the needle. A twill tape inside a waistband casing or along a shoulder seam is still doing its job at the garment's hundredth wearing, which is why the manufacturer directories list so many varieties by fibre and weave — each tape is specified like any other fabric in the garment, by what it must survive.