After the fashion show: feelings and thoughts from the Evelina

Please note: This post, was originally written on 21st June, and I have simply copied and pasted rather than re-editing because I simply didn't want to dilute it.

After the massive high of the fashion show I now find myself in the Evelina children's hospital in London waiting for my 3 year old to return from kidney surgery and I am feeling very reflective.(21st June)

I have closed the Curve Couture studio for a whole week, an unprecedented event since I was on maternity leave. Despite the hugely inconvenient timing sometimes life comes first, and this week is no exception.

So while I have a few hours to kill instead of dwelling on the current events, I am writing my blog to bring it up you up to speed with how Brighton Fashion Week went down.

The week long run up to Brighton Fashion Week I spent mostly wired, tired and downright determined to finish what I had started. At the beginning of the week I had all but the men's corsets and breeches and skirts, shorts and bra's finished. It sounds like a lot; and it was. Aside from this I still had three commissions to complete that week...so it was full on stress.

I had some great assistance from Zoe Van Spyk who is cutting her teeth in the workshop whilst she puts a fashion business proposal together, as she is a wonderful fashion designer in her own right and the hugely creative Zoe Della Rocca who came up with the styling for hair and make-up from my original brief. I will be introducing Zoe Della Rocker as a guest blogger very soon for the Countryphile style as she had such a massive creative vision that the peeps at Brighton Fashion Week had to hold us back.

So, we were busy, super fricking busy. The night before the show we were working until the sun came up and after a sleep that was way to short, in my opinion, the time had arrived to shake our tail feathers and show just what Curve Couture is made of.

Well, as it turned out, St Barts in Brighton (a church more renowned for taking the assumed dimensions of Noah's Ark than fashion) was packed. The ornate windows and beautiful brickwork being a great foil for the drama that was the Showreel Show, the first of it's kind in the world where the world of vintage,costume and cosplay strut it's stuff instead of the elitism of a strict catwalk show.

For my part, I didn't get to see the first half as I was too busy backstage dealing with 'on-the-day' problems such as lost bags, shoes that didn't fit and the surprise of a quick change for one of my wonderful male models Joe...as he had been booked back to back on the designers either side of me. Stress. A fashion show, like any event, is full of nerves, stress and high emotions as well as unexpected changes, problems and an aura of excited expectation.

Whet your whistle:

photo by Sarah Olivier, model Ellie Watson

Corset, final shape

So, I am nearly there with the corset...just in time to go to bed.

I tried it on earlier, and I thought I'd share the results.

This is me without corset

 

 

 

 

 

So this is me without a corset on, please ignore the state of my studio (it is always in chaos and I like it like that). I'm not looking bad for 36 years old,  after a baby and a lifetime of doing little exercise and eating whatever the hell I want. I round up these days to about a size 14 (UK) my waist is about 29 1/2 inches, bust 36DD, hips 39 1/2.


So this corset I have sized for myself, as a trial and it is designed specifically to enhance my natural hourglass shape.
I always use myself as a trial figure because I have always been the intended shape of the final corset (that being the hourglass) and I usually wear a size 24" corset comfortably...which is a good sample size for a corset.



Here are two shots of the corset, one front on, one side on so you can see the shape of the corset all round. You can really see how my waist is defined by the corset, both from front and side. The hip sections allow the bum to be contained and lifted by the extremely low cut lacing. Cool. The next time you see this corset it will be on the catwalk. I'm moving on to the next set of designs.

Today: suspender belts

So this is what I've been up to today:

Continuing with my suspender belt challenge...it has been really great fun and a quick turnaround. This is the basic garment before trimming. Loving the contrast of peach and black.

Also had a chance to block up some french knickers and tomorrow I intend to put that together to test the shape of the garment. I think that I still have enough of this fabric to make a waspie so I may concentrate on that tomorrow afternoon. It's all coming along very nicely.

Neck corset

For the past 2 days I have been working on a neck corset idea for AFW. I started off with no particular idea of fabrics or styling, but a drawing of what I wanted the structure to be.

This is my original sketch, done in ink with a fat nib. I tend to start all my designs with black outlines and fill in the details as I'm going along. Every designer works in a diferent way...this is mine.

From the design I  create a paper pattern, this time modifying an opera coat collar in Turn of the Century Fashion Patterns and Techniques by S.S Gordan  and then make a test pattern usng calico. A test pattern is necessary in all new designs to check the pattern achieves the task and fits correctly. I am testing the pattern on a standard size 12 dressmakers dummy.

From there I now am compelled to consider style, fabric, decorative detailing before I can progress to actually make the neck corset. That's when I usually stare for an hour at a blank piece of paper with my pencils, inks and paints before inspiration strikes. With my fabrics picked I set about the task of construction. As I do actually want this corset to be stiff I use stayflex to provide strength on the pink satin I have chosen and sew the neck corset in a similar way to a normal one, sewing all the layers as one and creating boning channels.

Here it is so far on the mannequin with the corset that is it's inspiration. I still haven't decided if I will actually bone it yet and have left it unadorned thus far.

Titanic era corsets

Today I've been thinking about Titanic or teens era corsets as it is also known. I personally think of this era as a transition period between the true S-bend corset of the early Edwardian period and the advent of the fall of grace of corsets in the fashionable wardrobe in the 1920's.

The development of this corset style is directly influenced by a huge shift in female fashion from the body altering wasp waist to a more streamlined silhouette...but remained restricted by a modern woman's standards. This was in part to the steady lengthening of the corset over the hipline assisted by a new invention, elastic, which now meant that stockings could provide the pulling power necessary to keep the corset taught under the sleek new fashionable style.

This is Camille Clifford ( 1885-1971), who was a famous tight -lacer. She exemplifies the silhouette of this time: both bust and bum are proud, contorting the body into the infamous S-bend which renders the waist stretched between the bust and bum extremes. It must have been an uncomfortable pose indeed, although considering that women were so used to wearing corsets in those days perhaps not as much as us modern women would think?

Major design features of this period:

• extreme long line corsets
• mainly vertical seaming and boning channels
• streamlining of hips
• straight 'neckline' cutting either mid or below the bust
• usually accompanied by suspenders
• neutral colours
• little or no hand finishing
• internal boning channels

Inspiration abound...

Well, it's nearly the end of my maternity leave and I am very excited about starting work again.

I feel so inspired by my last trip to research the Symington collection last Saturday that my mind has been buzzing with new idea's. Laid out for us was about 60 corsets of varying design and era, and after an informative talk by Phillip Warren on the history of the Symington company and how the collection came to be, we were allowed to take pictures and make notes.

I was most interested in the complex seaming and longline cut of the Edwardian corsets, as this is most relevant to my next collection. Although I managed to get round all of the corsets and take reference shots of all the things I found interesing, I picked out 4 corsets for special attention to really get my head around the construction techniques particular to that era.

It's all about exaggerating the most obvious of female assets...glorious big hips, a tiny waist and a full bustline! The development of the longer line corsets of this era were a reaction to a changing silhouette in which skirts fit snuggly over the hips and the development of elasticated suspenders which had the effect of keeping the long corset wrinkle free over the hip by the tension of pulling up the hose.

Anyway, it has sparked a renewed interest in getting really into the pattern cutting of corsets, and paying attention to those extra special details that make it unique in the world of fashion.

On my long train ride to get there, between bouts of sleep, I really thought hard about what it is about corsets that I find so interesting and I came to the conclusion that what excites me is the role of the corset to physically change and conform the body to it's shape, to exert force to intimatly and modify the nature of the wearer directly. Unlike other garments which externally alter the silhouette through disguise.

But more news on my next collection later, as it's still very much early stages in the process, but I will say that my mum is knitting furiously to give me some rather interesting accessories.

Pretty Housemaid - construction notes

This corset is a labour of love, honestly...if you don't have patience this one is going to be a chore!

Being unfamiliar with this construction of corset I am constantly referring to my notes and photo's.

My initial research into construction led me to a problem with cording. I had initially used the smallest piping cord I could buy to do the cording, but after doing some sampling I realised that it is far too crude to be appear like the cording on the original corset. When I measured the width of the cording it was only about 3-4mm wide, almost half what I had been trying...and the results look less refined compared to the real thing. So - start again, this time using Russian Braid and sewing either side of it and in it's ditch...this is about right now, but still not entirely satisfactory. If I attempt to do this corset again I will be trying it with austrian blind cord which is very dense and very thin because the russian braid is making the cording look too flat. I am going to finish this corset as is and have a good look at it's shape before I think about starting the next one.

Just completed the hip section, which is the heaviest corded piece.Now I know why they had machines with  multiple rows of needles to do all this blasted cording! It is taking an age! They had special machines that did the cording all in one shot with some machines with up to 12 rows of needles all going at it. I really like the look of cording, but with only normal sewing machines it is very time consuming. I told ya....a labour of love it is!

It's starting to really come together now. The seams that contain the bones look as if they are jean seamed on top and lining fabrics so I'm now wondering if each piece was corded after being stitched to the last seam as the corset was being made. Maybe I will try that next time I give it a go also. Although on the real thing the evidence is that the boned seams are made from french seaming I will have to use casings on the inside as the corset is getting pretty difficult to manipulate with all the hessian interlining and piping to contend with. Although now historically inaccurate I feel that I am willing to accept the compromise. The good news is that it's going to be incredibly strong.

I have also decided that upon my attempt to dye cotton lace it is nigh on impossible to get a good colour match, so instead of it looking a bit off I am instead going to use black, and continue to use black as the detailing colour rather than the original blue, another deviation from the original.

The flossing now done, and cotton lace procured, albeit narrow, here are the results of the pretty housemaid...

Photoshoot at the Engineerium

Today the Gods were smiling on me!

The team assembled at the Engineerium at 2.30pm, make-up completed prior to the shoot by the fantastic Tabitha Adams. Model Kat Lawlor is always a pleasure to wok with, not only is she drop dead gorgeous but her wit and attitude always lift me. Bringing on the hair was Sandy Moo, whom I love working with. She just pulls out the stops, considering I made her job really hard today by telling Kat not to wash her hair when I should have told her not to condition it. Schoolboy error...how am I to know?

Anyway Sandy gave me the mega quiff I was after, I got Kat in the outfit and off we go!

Doug Craib, photographer maestro, did the business whilst I fretted about pulling out skirt creases. Raw silk can sometimes be unforgiving in these situations without an iron handy and I just had to go with it. The crew were a pleasure, all of us chipping in with reflectors and wet wipes. Unusually for a shoot, it was utterly tranquil, by far the easiest shoot I have ever done....which I put down to our team being tight and working so well together. It also helps to work with nice and wonderfully talented people.

I am so pleased, but I cannot show you the results as I am leaving it a surprise until the exhibit at the Brighton Museum opens. You will have to be satisfied for now with my docu shoot shot....

Oh, Steve ate all the cakes by the way...

Couture Fashion inspired by the British Engineerium 2

In less than a month I have to make this absolutely fabulous outfit for the Brighton Museum as featured in my last bloggy blog. Current status is searching for just the right materials and colours with which to set this piece alight. After I set up my new studio up at home I'll be getting onto pattern cutting. Still designing the detail for the front of the corset, am torn between my love for figurative embroidery and the abstract beading that seems more appropriate for the piece. It is a battle of style I hope I can resolve shortly...