Today's corset is the last of this little run of five. But don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from! As intended, I'm feeling a bit more cheerful for sharing some images. It helps me reflect on my work by viewing it from others' perspectives, so thank you for all your opinions. Also, thankfully, the old school friend who checked my laptop has found that the hard drive can be copied! The laptop is dead and gone, which is still an issue, but I'm thrilled that my files can be saved. The week is turning out okay after all :-)
Today's eye candy is the incredible Tessa in a silk satin corset-body with attached posture collar and shoulders.
(CREDITS:
Sean Elliott Photography and
SJE Make-up)
I've given you the back view of this piece as all the other shots so far have been front views, and I love the look of long lacing panels. With a piece like this you can hide the lacing away by tying it off right at the top or bottom, but I quite like having a thick bunch of lacing at the waist sometimes... it reminds me of kinky belted horsetails, such as Alison Goldfrapp has worn on stage.
The taupe silk satin is delicious, I love it. With this corset-body, I wanted to play with accentuating and creating an hourglass figure with strong shoulders. It was initially inspired by a 1940s wedding dress from The Bowes Museum, Durham. The dress was in ivory satin with quilted shoulders in this shape. For my piece, I've quilted a design of a sunburst and fluffy clouds by hand, kind of loosely inspired by a Worth gown (which itself was, I believe, part of the western appropriation of "oriental" visual elements). The quilted design covers the front panel and extends up over half cups then onto the shoulders. Ie: the angles of the sun's rays continue across the empty space as though on one continuous piece of fabric, which is a detail I love (it isn't shown here, but you'll get to see it as I share more images in the future). It makes placing and drawing the design so much more challenging and enjoyable! I can also now see why satin was quilted so often... the gloss of the fabric picks up the light in such a way to add form and dimension to the design. So the clouds have shadows and shining linings, as though heavy with rain.
My next dream is to make one of these pieces completely quilted. I can imagine this idea taken forward in a stormy midnight blue satin, every section hand quilted in an original design that wraps around the body. Perhaps as a regular overbust shape (with panels instead of cups) with low cut hips and differently shaped shoulders. I hope someone will set me such a challenge soon!
Of course, a piece like this benefits from more than one fitting (in-person fittings, if possible) so it's not a fast process. Even for this sample, I didn't have the time I needed to iron out the kinks. But that's one of the things I love about making elaborate garments for clients... it's an opportunity to luxuriate in the time required. To really enjoy each stitch, whether you're the client or the maker.
I hope you've enjoyed my images this week. As already mentioned, I will update these posts with full credits once I have proper internet access again. These are just a teaser of the shots we took at my portfolio shoot in February so many thanks again to everyone involved for their time, skill and effort. Corsets only become magical once you put them on the body, so being able to share these images with you is a hugely validating part of the process :-)
Additionally, if you have seen anything this week that you might be interested in studying, please do let me know so that I can consider it for those workshops I may put on.
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