Thursday 1 December 2011

Emerald silk & fuchsia lace corset

I came up with the idea for this floral-themed corset after seeing the gorgeous beaded flowers made by a talented local artist, Kate Venables (a former RNZB ballerina no less!).

The corset is a deep emerald green silk dupion backed with english coutil and lined with fuchsia silk satin.  The pattern was drafted by me, and is a 21" waist underbust style with a high back and petal-shaped lower edge.

The lace was dyed (in the microwave!) a vibrant shade of fuchsia and carefully hand-stitched to hide any visible shaping.  I adore the look of lace over bright colours, so this was a real pleasure to make.

Both the corset and the bra are embellished by hand with hundreds of Swarovski beads (fuchsia, tanzanite, purple velvet) and hot-fix crystals (volcano, fuchsia, meridian blue).  The beaded flowers were made especially by Kate in shades of purple, lilac and fuchsia.  She stitched them to the corset and bra (and the matching fascinator) along with a trim of braided cord in the same shades.  (Please excuse the poor quality of this image, it was taken on my phone)



The high-waisted knickers are made from a lovely piece of powernet with a floral design woven into it.  I dyed the fabric to match the lace, and was really happy with the result.  The knickers are embellished with Swarovski hot-fix crystals in fuchsia, just to add a little sparkle.

Thank you to the following people for making this outfit look good:
Photographer - Alessandro Saponi
Makeup artist - Olivia Wild
Hair stylist - Bex @ Willis York
Beaded flowers - Kate Venables