Waist training, sometimes known as corset training, is increasing in popularity seemingly by the day. I’ve written about it a lot, but what is waist training, anyway? Today, I’ll cut through to the basics: what is waist training, why do people do it, and how do they do it. Waist Training & Tightlacing The words waist training and tightlacing are often used interchangeably, and each person will have their own […]
People have some strongly held convictions about corsets, and along with the many outright myths and misconceptions, I see a lot of sweeping generalizations. Most of these tend to fall under the categories of hearsay or limited experience applied across the entire craft. It’s unfair to judge the diverse range of handmade corsets based on poor experiences at, say, the Renaissance Fair, or if you’re already on the handmade bandwagon, […]
Last week, the only corset community went into a state of shock as it received news of the untimely passing of Christine Wickham. Christine Wickham was the designer for Ariadne’s Thread Corsetry: Elegant Creations by a Girl from Down Under, and her reach throughout corset world stretched far beyond her personal brand. She was a very active member throughout the corset community, bringing a thoughtful scientific perspective as well as […]
It’s a fact that people have been taking pictures of lovely ladies for as long as there have been cameras. There’s something about really old photos that has always seemed particularly luminous and compelling to me, some combination of the film and retouching techniques that is reminiscent of an oil painter’s brush strokes. (And, if you look closely, you can even occasionally see where some tiny brushwork was applied for […]
I first became aware of hip fins on corsets via Sparklewren, though there are quite a few couture corsets (particularly corset bodies) that feature them. Though “hip fins” has become the commonly accepted name for them, I like to think of them as miniature panniers; they could also be considered a sort of floating gore or a stiffened semi-peplum. This detail generally parallels the iliac crest and emphasizes the dramatized […]
