Black and white Steampunk striped corsets, dresses and costumes for Halloween

I love stripes and I think other Steampunk fans do too. I have some new designs out and I wanted to share and halloween is coming very soon!

Steampunk circus idea. Black and white striped blouse with black petticoat tutu with black tulle and white satin ribbon. I can image this costume, with stripy tights and ballet shoes and awesome halloween make up.

Lolita sailor dress. Top half black and white stripes, bottom half black cotton with white satin ribbon near bottom edge. Black cotton halter neck straps and heart shaped neck line. Elastic back. Finished with a red satin waist band. Can be worn with our without a petticoat.

Underbust corset. This piece is lined with gorgeous purple satin.

Striped fascinator with two red paper flowers and black feathers. The diameter of this little cocktail hat is 10cm.

Costume shoe clips, perfect for decorating normal foot wear!

Lissabonbon Vintage Cafe Berlin

If you're visiting Berlin this summer, check out the Lissabonbon Vintage Cafe. The cafe is decorated with vintage posters and furniture and sell cakes baked from vintage recipes. Defiantly worth a visit!

Corset for Amanda Palmer!

The end of last year I was lucky enough to meet a singer who I adore! Amanda Palmer formally from the Dresden Dolls was touring Europe around October - December 2013 and she came with her band The grand Theft Orchestra and played Berlin! I'd made her an underbust corset. She choose bottle green velvet with gold border details. I met her backstage that evening to give her her new corset and she was very thankful for it, gave me a beer and said enjoy the show...and thats exactly

what I did! The show was amazing and I was so proud to see Amanda Palmer wearing my corset!
Photo by Stav Barzilay.

18th Century Court Dress with Stays and Panniers

 

Last year I was commissioned by a talented opera singer, Johanna Blackstone, to make her an opera dress for her to wear to her perfromances. A lot of research was done to construct the perfect dress for Johanna and as I had only briefly touched upon this period of dress while I was studying historical costume design in Italy, I had to do a lot of reading to make sure I got it right! First things first was the under structure, of course which consists of stays (the earlier word for corset) and full panniers. In the past I had made pocket hoops, however these smaller version were only wore in the day. Johanna need a dress for evening wear so it had to be grand! The stays were made from strong cotton and I cut 50 straight steel bones to fit into the corset. Next was the panniers I used a fantastic book "Corsets and Crinolines" by Norah Waugh to construct the perfect full pannier. When I had competed both the corset and pannier I started on the jacket. The jacket used to be sewn straight onto the corset in the 1700s but this is not necessary today.

So I used hook and eyes to close the jacket to the corset and the front stomacher piece I attached with press studs. The under skirt was made from a gorgeous blue and white Toile de Jouy fabric finished with lots of lace on the front edge. The jacket was made from blue taffeta, and I found vintage lace for the sleeve edges. The jacket and stomacher were finished with border, bows, ribbons and lace! Johanna actually makes her own wigs which has finished this piece of perfectly!

                     

Custom made corsets for Marlene von Steenvag

A few years ago I made two corsets for burlesque sensation Marlene von Steenvag. She wanted two different designs to wear for two performances. The first corset was a baby pink satin covered by a gorgeous blue and silver lace, trimmed with lavender coloured satin. The second was a white corset with a silver damask pattern. I made both corsets with 6 suspender attachments... here are some images taken by Berlin burlesque photographer Paul Green.

Corset sponsorship for German breast cancer research

Recently I got involved in a project with a very good cause! I made corsets for curvy plus size models for a calendar that will be on sale later this year to help German breast cancer research.
Here's a sneak preview of the corsets and models. The two corsets I've shown here are (to the left) rouge red satin covered by a black flock organza. The corset is lined with black satin and finished with a cute black satin bow at the front. The second corset is a ivory bridal design corset made from ivory coloured satin with beautiful pearl applique. More info coming soon!