Opened my online shop!

I recently opened my new online shop where I will be selling my Corsets, dresses, jewellery and fascinators!

http://en.dawanda.com/shop/MissMoss

I also did a new photo shoot with gorgeous model and photographer of Ayrias Arts and here are the results:

New Burlesque party tonight!

Tonight I am going to check out a new Burlesque party in Berlin! It looks like it will be fun with some really stunning performers! Its called Salon Kokett and its being held a CCCP Club!


The line up will be: 
La Veuve Noire, Marlene Von Steenvag and DJane Tiga Lily playing music from Swing to Electronica.


I'm really looking forward to it and hoping it will be as fabulous as Boheme Sauvage which is a 1920's party that I went to recently and it was like stepping into a time machine! The people really dressed up for this occasion! The music, bands, performers and venue were fantastic!



I am sponsoring another burlesque party that will be held in Hamburg and Berlin called La Fete Fatale. There are prizes for the best dressed and the theme is Candyland of sweet temptation. With another variety of performers! It will be on 8th October in Hamburg and 15th October in Berlin! I can't wait!

Latest photo shoot..

I did a photo shoot recently of a few corsets and some dresses that I have been making for my website. The photography was by Steve Braun, Model: Lydia Venthur, feather fascinator by Jeonga Choi and Costume and styling done by moi!

Recreating the past

Years ago when my Corset obsession was beginning to really take off I went to the Victoria and Albert museum in London and I saw a beautiful fuchsia pink Corset with a black lace trim and a pink ribbon finishing. On a more recent visit to the V&A museum I unfortunately did not see the corset as the exhibitions change frequently but I re-looked it up in a book I bought from the Museum and I found it again. I decided to recreate this corset but with my own modern flair!

Above is the image of the Corset that is part of the fascinating historical costume collection at the V&A. Its dated from about 1885-1895. It is French and the shape is classic for the end of the 19th century. The steel busk which fasten the corset at the centre front came into popular use around the 1850's making it much easier for the wearer to get herself into her own corset without as much assistance of others, but help was still needed.

Before the 1880s white cotton or linen were used for "respectable women". The corsets of this period didn't have much decoration to them as they were used as a tool to mould the female body to the desired ideal at the time. Bolder colours were used by prostitutes and women of "looser morals" However after the 1880s, thanks to the industrial revolution the corset trade really began to change and develop and more materials were starting to become available and a larger range of fabrics such as coloured silks, satin or silk broche so the colour of the Corset above was typical towards the end of the century with lots of decoration and elegant laces.

With this elegant historical design as my inspiration and after researching fabrics I found some beautifully bright fuchsia pink silk from a my local little fabric shop in Italy, I had some black lace sent from England and I started working on my own design. However the lining I made from black and white polka dot fabric, just to add a more modern feel to the design! I organised a photo shoot with the photographer Steve Braun and the fabulous model Lydia. It was Lydia's first time at modelling but she was a complete natural and the photos turned out really nice! Although Lydia does not have a super tiny waist of the women from the Victorian era, I am still happy with the results of a modern day corset for a modern woman. We do not need to lace up super tight like the corsets of the past. The women we see in the old images who have super tiny waists are showing off their social status and their husbands wealth and role in society. The smaller the woman's waist showed that she simply could not do much and this helped the image men saw women as the "weaker sex". It was not up until the end of the first world war in 1918 that women were really showing they had a voice, they had proven they could take over the men's jobs in the factories to help with the war effort and to be seen as equals.

I am glad that today we have a right to choose what we wear and if we want to wear a corset or not. I think, even now, it is still seen as a sexual symbol and I think it will always stay that way but it is our choice to show ourselves in whatever way we please, tight laced or not and not just to satisfy the taste of a possible future husband!

Berlin, fashion, magazine articles & new corset course!!

Finally I have moved back to Berlin after living in Italy for almost a year! The experience of Bella Italia was wonderful and managed to travel quite a lot around the country and soak in as much of the art, architecture and culture as possible. I have to say that the Fashion, especially in Rome was a lot different to the fashion in Berlin (as I am sure everyone is aware of!) Everything here is so much more relaxed,  with people's attitudes and the way they want to represent themselves by their clothes and hair styles. In Italy I found at times people would stop with mouths wide open, staring and pointing at me because of my pink hair and way I dress but in Berlin I am just one among the many individuals who come to Berlin to get involved in this thriving city! I have to say...I am happy to be home!

Above is a photograph of the 5 dresses that I made for Atelier Pietro Longhi...they took me a long time to complete as there were a lot of small details and I had to work on 5 all in one go, but I finished them!  I am only just seeing the image for the first time now and it is from a performance at a masked ball in Venice last February.

I recently had an article written about my work in a Berlin magazine called Exberliner by journalist Jessica Saltz, which I was very happy with! It is the first article written about my label Miss Moss.

"Gemma's bright pink hair suggests modern sartorial influences, but her devotion to corsetry was born from a love of historical fashion, from Marie Antoinette to the Victorian corset to Christians Dior's "New Look" in the 1950's..."
"Her passion for the craft recently led her to Italy. Where she worked on historical costumes for Venice's Atelier Pietro Longhi for four months. The corsets that Gemma creates are not meant to be worn under anything but are timeless, beautifully constructed pieces that will last forever. So why not make your own?"

I have been doing some more research on Vivienne Westwood as I visited London a few months ago and ventured into a regular haunt for me when I am in "The old smoke"...The Victoria and Albert museum. What I love about Vivienne Westwood's work is that she is so inspired by historical costume and tailoring but she came up with a completely new fashion "Punk" which paved the way for her fantastic career in fashion! To come up with an new fabulous, unique idea is hard but I believe if you have the right creativeness in your spirt you can be your own pioneer!

She was also the first to bring to corset as "outer wear". Usually when we think of the corset in the 80's or 90's Jean Paul Gautier's corset for Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour springs to mind but it was actually Viv who revived this restrictive piece from the bottom of the dusty corners in your Grandmothers wardrobe and gave it a new life.

I have a new corset course planned for Saturday 14th August and will last for 6 saturdays, 10am-1pm each session...but unfortunately I think this will be the last one for a while. Now I want to focus on building up my label and try and find more work working within costume design for theatre, television and film. However I am sure I will run another one at some point but I now have other projects I am working on that I am hoping will take off very soon!

Also have a photo shoot booked for this weekend so I can finally get my catalogue of work up online! I will keep my blog updated!!

Little treasures found in Venice!

I started living in Venice, Italy in September 2009. I was doing a costume design internship with a company called Atelier Pietro Longhi in the heart of the city. It was a fabulous experience and I feel I learnt more from my 4 month internship there than I did in 3 years at university!! And living in Venice was a magical experience if not a little boring at times too. I refer to it as sleepy town because not much is happening here for young people!

In my internship I lernt how to make Elizabethan Ruffs, something I had been so eager to learn for a long time! I also learnt how to construct costumes mostly from the 16th & 17th Century Venetian Fashions. When work was over I asked my Maestro if he could teach me how to construct an 18th Century Corset as I have been looking at the construction in books for many years and found it extremely complex so I wanted to take the time to understand the construction of the undergarment. 

I was at Palazzo Mocenigo a few months ago. The palace was home to the Mocenigo family since the 17th Century. Within this palace is a small Costume collection which mainly show Venetian fashions and in one of the display cabinets on the floor was a tiny, heavily bones mid 18th century Corset, the construction of this delicate little masterpiece was amazing. So much detail and the precise stitching all done by hand as sewing machines had not yet been invented! I have also just found out that this Palace has a library of the Fabrics and Costume History Centre, which I will take a good look at!

So while I was working at the Atelier I was staying behind later to work on my very own 18th Century Corset. There are so many bones in this construction and I enjoyed every moment of making it except the hand stitching the bias binding on to each individual tab at the bottom of the Corset. The tabs are the tongue shaped pieces at the bottom of the Corsets used in 17th & 18th Century corsetry. The pattern on the fabric and colour I used was not historically correct but I just wanted to make something to test how it worked and with the final product it was more for a fashion photo shoot than to be historically accurate.

I ended up doing a photo shoot at an abandoned hospital just outside Berlin called "Belitz" I went along with a small team which included the model Stephanie Peregrinus and Photographers Ray Demski and Leena McCall. I was really pleased with the results!

A little treasure I found in Venice the other day was a beautiful metal mask. It stood out to me because it was different from all the other Venetian masks you see...and there are so many shops here selling the same product that its quite tiring to see the same thing over and over again, but as I passed a window in a small ally way which I had never ventured down before I saw this beautiful little dainty mask calling out to me. Nothing extravagant and bursting with colours, just simple black delicate pattern and perfectly fitting to my taste! 

Making Corsets and party over Europe!

Its taken me ages to add a new reply here!!

I have finally arranged when to teach my next corset course in Berlin and I am happy to say it will start Monday 14th June - Saturday 19th June! 10am-1pm each day! It will be held at Linkle Stitch n

'N' Bitch sewing cafe!! If anyone is interested in attending the course please get in contact!

At the moment I am working on some new designs but it is taking me a while to get around to doing them! But I have a range of materials to play with and hoping to get some designs made up soon and ready to put in my online shop! Also working on a costume I hope to wear to a fetish party held at Club Rub in London in May, that should be fun! 

Also looking forward to going to London to find loads of materials to use. I feel a bit lost here in Italy, the things I want I can't find and everything is a tad too expensive...makes you really appreciate cities like Berlin and how cheap it is! I am missing going to parties but just read that Torture Garden will be coming to Rome at the end of May, the weekend after the Club Rub party in London! So perhaps that is another date for the diary!

Baby steps...

I have been recommended by a few people that I should start a Blog! So here it goes!

My name is Gemma and I am fascinated with the history of Costume. My love of costume began from seeing films such as Amadeus and Titanic.

The main garment that I was always fixated on was the corset. I was totally inspired by this undergarment that could curve and alter the female form to fit to the fashion ideal of the day. Since I was 13 years old I always wanted to understand the garment and its construction. I bought my first corset when I was 16 still not knowing how one was put together. I went to university at 18 to study fashion design, which I feel was a mistake and I should of studied Costume Design. There was no possibility at the time for me to learn how to make real genuine Corsets at the time with the fashion course.

In the second year we had to do work experience. I decided to work for a corset company. I would ask questions and they were really afraid to let go of their trade secrets. I did learnt how the fabrics and materials are put together but not how to make a corset tailor made to the body. It wasn't until I did my work experience at Tamworth Castle that I met historical costume designer Gini Newton from Chimera Costumes who really took the time to show me the construction from the very start. When I would see her at the castle we would discuss the things that I were so eager to learn and gave me titles of fabulous books I should check out! I also went and visited another corset designer who gave me more tips and I put all the advice and knowledge together to make my very first (poorly made) corset!!

After making the first corset I continued to try new things and keep working on them to perfect the new skill I had learned.