Wrought Plastic Corset
Once again, I decided about a month before the deadline to enter the Foundations Revealed competition. Because inspiration always strikes at the last possible minute.
I opted to use the theme “Intersection of Light, Black and White” rather than the historical pattern. I’ve been meaning to play with thermoplastic corsets for a long time now but had never had quite the right project as an excuse or the funds available. I finally gave in, especially once I read the prompt and it mentioned wrought iron as a potential source of inspiration. Wrought iron is a serious weakness of mine, and I’ve always found it incredibly beautiful and inspirational, so I decided to run with that in combination with a clear thermoplastic.
I wanted to play with how the transparency of the base corset would combine with the decoration and the wearer’s skin tone. The fact that with the plastic I can get a completely transparent result, in comparison to the more standard corsetry mesh that not only has color but also needs boning channels, means greater influence of the wearer on the appearance of the actual garment, which I’m excited to explore with different models. In the case of a belted overlayer, it creates the illusion that just the decoration is doing the cinching, which is a really cool effect when viewed from a distance.
I took the opportunity to also play with my new corsetry form! I draped a pattern in paper, since it would act more like the final product than muslin would, and created the base corset out of clear thermoplastic.
The outer layer is a separate piece, made of another thermoplastic, wonderflex. I wanted the ability to be versatile, and the clear thermoplastic doesn’t have the self-adhering qualities of other thermoplastics, so attachment would have been difficult to hide given the transparency of the base layer. I’ve also made a couple of other outer layers that can be switched out, so it can be used for very different looks.
I really loved working with this material, and I can’t wait to explore it more! I’m already in process for a mini collection with it that’s going to play even more with the fun properties of the material.
(Bottom picture credits: Model @hjsteele, Photographer @eye-ofa-panda)
