antique and vintage lace embellished ivory and mid night blue pashmina, a set on Flickr.
I made five of these for my wedding party, they looked great all together on the day, I loved the fact that each element that went in to the design had some history or tale behind it.
August is a really exciting month, the colours of spring are still lingering, with the vibrance of summer deepening in to the promise of autumnal shades...anything goes in August.
We have a few new designs this month and a selection of new fabrics, antique and vintages laces.
My favorite new design for this month is the Alice inspired corset gown.... Click on the image to see more...
Below is an image taken from the website of the fabric sample card, this new product means that you can see and feel fabrics for yourself. Click on the image to see more...
We always get very excited about new supplies of Victorian, antique and vintage lace because they are so rare and unique... These are the results of a recent treasure hunt!
Do feel free to get in touch if there is something that you are looking for in particular, we are constantly updating the inspiration section of our website if you are browsing for ideas.
It has been a bit of a whirl wind ride for the last few too many months but we are back posting new fabric colours and inspirations for you!
One of my biggest favourites at the moment is cream with burgundy accents, the pearls and garnets complement each other so well and can be made as dramatic or subtle as the whim takes you, more burgundy means more drama.
Another colour combination that I have recently developed a new infatuation with is dark forest green and dark cream, a spectacular combination for spring and summer weddings or proms.
These are some of the new fabrics and colours that have got me really excited about the new season.
The lace is a classic design that has been around for a while in black, white and pink but whilst recently working on a 'mother of the groom' outfit I discovered a range of new colours, what is special about the chocolate lace is a slight coppery/rusty hint that is picked out in the high lights of the pattern which just happened to go perfectly with a shade of raw silk that creates a really warm and luxurious feel.
Bringing the concept towards a more bridal ideal, I wanted to lighten the over all feel with creamy shades. As soon as I laid the fabrics together, I received an email about a similar colour combination.
This sent my mind off in to an earthy, victorian spiral. This lace is just utterly gorgeous and would work beautifully with the chocolate as well. I can't wait to have some samples made up!
In contrast to these natural, earthy tones, my heart jumped when I saw this rich kingfisher blue, it is just so captivating.
Now all I have to do is decide which to make up first...
Well the beginning of the year has been a bit of a roller coaster ride so far but things are starting to settle down a bit now, giving me the opportunity to pick up some of the arty ideas I started to develop over the last year... though I should say 'few' years, there are so many things I have planned to start, I've been collecting equipment for new arty experiments for so long and I'm dying to get my teeth in to something the world has never seen before!
I have ideas that have been rolling around in my brain for years, inspired particularly by three artists, Picasso, Dali and Giacometti. I do have a bit of a personal obsession with line and form and a deep seated passion for colour. One of the key phrases in my design journal last year was
'use line to create form and colour to convey emotion'. Giacometti has a stunning range of portraits that are deep and warming with a dark edge to them without being sinister or depressing in anyway, the emotion that he conveys with his use of colour is simple yet effective beyond comparision his limits on shades and tones make his minimal use of highlights absolutely breath taking, seeing a painting in a gallery, you rush up to get a closer look and the image almost disappears, awash with coarse, harsh and stark lines that make up the beautiful soft image that can be seen from further away, there was one portrait in particular that inspired me
the most, I am working on getting permission to post it here but until then I will have to leave you to google to see if you can guess which one it was!
I feel in some ways that I am contradicting my philosophy when I bring Picasso and Dali into this but it's not so much the work that they are famous for that inspired me, more the doodles and workings of developing ideas along with the use of colour in certain aspects and particular elements taken from their cubist paintings. There are tiny details in (what I would call the background) of some of their cubist and abstract paintings that for some reason grabbed my attention more than the over all pieces of work. Picasso did some gorgeous work in earthy, sepia tones with black detail, these were an inspiration to me far too many years ago back in art school and they still stick in my mind and I worry that I will never be able to do these inspirations any justice but art is a journey, if you reach the end of the journey, you won't need to worry about anything much at all! Previously all the work that I have done around this brain worm has been in sketches, paintings and charcoal. It was last year that I started to seriously think about bringing these elements in to fabrics and my corsetry.
One of the first things that I began to wonder about in a fine art perspective to fabrics for corsetry involved what could be created on them. I am still so fascinated by the idea of making a corset in plain canvas and coutil decorating the whole corset in abstract elements inspired by the abstract painters and drawn entirely in Biro.
I didn't think about what I was using here, I just
Quickly playing around I came up with a few elements that could be developed.
I started to play around with some ideas
