corsets & costumes! fabric, details, straight seams, well-made clothing, squishy parts, vintage dress catalogues, books about fabric and well-made clothing, books about knitting, wearing bloomers, research, studying couture, a really good pair of scissors, hand sewing, bias cut, bias binding, pintucks. getting really excited when seams match up perfectly. making really big messes of fabric and pins and not cleaning it up for days. pulling out bins full of clothing and playing dress-up. every summer, i get obsessed with making a bloomer bathing outfit with a big sailor collar. taking pictures! pajamas! girdles! pointy bras, ten-inch waists, long black stockings all over the place...
big girls, little girls, curvy girls, girls who want to be curvy, boys who want to be curvy, people who like to dress up, people who like to make things. anyone wearing a mask. and puppetmasters! burlesque cuties, hot mamas, pin-up queens, fetish fashion folks, crafty ladies and gentlemen. movers and shakers! artists, photographers, people with a lot to say, people with mad talent, people who are just plain nice. i've met the damned already, but i wouldn't mind meeting them again! This picture is also by Robyn from Wicked Swank .
These corsets are brought to you by the Damned, DEVO, Adam and the Antz, Brian Eno, Thor , the Birthday Party & Nick Cave/Bad Seeds (duh... although it was pretty close to being Grimly Fiendish Corsetry), XTC, Iggy Pop, Harry and the Potters , Skinny Puppy, Klaus Nomi, Julie London, Johnny Cash, George Jones!, Siouxsie/Creatures, Spell, Big Black, Rasputina, Coil, the Velvet Underground, the Misfits, Roxy Music, Slim Cessna's Auto Club , T. Rex, the Cramps, Joy Division, Bauhaus/Tones on Tail/Love and Rockets, Destroyer, Patsy Cline, X, Anonymous 4, Dee Dee Sharp, Leonard Cohen, ABBA, the soundtracks to "Bottle Rocket" and "Tout les Matins du Monde", the musical episode of Buffy, and by osmosis all that weird stuff Josh listens to.
yes, please. pirate movies! costume dramas! anything with james spader! anything with 'blood' in the title! rosalind russell, myrna loy, veronica lake, greta garbo, katherine hepburn, catherine deneuve, audrey hepburn, sue lyon, ann-margret. udo kier, jimmy stewart, robert mitchum, vincent price, bela & boris, gregory peck. maddin, jarmusch, almodovar, greenaway, caro/jeunet, merchant/ivory, coffin joe, billy wilder, wes anderson, terry gilliam. norma desmond, c. k. dexter haven, the carrie nations, lord summerisle, dawn davenport, george emerson ...and , of course, the scarlet pimpernel. is he in heaven, or is he in hell? that damned, elusive pimpernel!
Hooray for Dover! And a nod to Taschen. A History of Underclothes. Corsets and Crinolines - Norah Waugh. The Corset - Valerie Steele. John Willie's Bizarre. Dessous. Marquis and Skin Two. Jean Hunnisett's Period Costuming series makes us drool. Vintage Postcard collections. Suzi's Boy London catalogue from the 80's that I scanned and Josh deleted. Really, Eustacia is the one to talk to about books. We NEVER get distracted by them when we are supposed to be sewing.
Mad props out to the entire staff of the Wilshire branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Librarians are so cool! Schiaparelli, Westwood, Vampira, Patricia Morrison, Fetish Diva Midori, Poison Ivy Rorschach, Heather & Jenny - sometimes I think I was nuts to move so far away from these two ladies. My sister Christy, Dorothy from Other Woman Wear, Sue at Nice Corsets, Cecilia Tan/Danny @ the Boston Fetish Flea Market, Miss Firecracker (thanks for the Headline, darlin!), Megara the Amazing, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Tasha Tudor, Louisa May Alcott, Amelia Bloomer, Suzi at Hubba Hubba, Thomas at LISA, Lara at Lara's Corsets, Russell & Becky at SAC and all of my lovely customers!