Another newbie piping in here. Initially, and in general, I find the cabaret styles very pretty, and I did not find the tribal styles all appealing. However, after finding beauty in the tribal style of dance and looking at tons of performances and photosof tribal dancer, I really do see the beauty in tribal coustming style.
I think one of the cool things about tribal is the varaitions (superficially esthetically speaking). There are the dark and kinda gothy styles, such as Zoe and Rachel Brice (fusion now, right? but both initially tribal, right?), and then there are the more Earth mama styles of Fat Chance Belly Dance. And then with fusion there are even more dynamic mixes of costume styling! Perhaps do a google image search on tribal bellydancing or check out tribes.com and look at some of the pictures there. You might be suprised how cute (and sometimes sparkly!) some of the tribal outfits are.
I think as a newbies, we should all explore the different styles of BD to find what suits us and that through the music and the dancing decide what our focus will be and not think about the superficial like what costumes look the best. And, seems like with fusion we can pretty much brake the rules once we have a strong foundation and wear whatever we want!
