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.