The Little Black Corset in Four Every Day Styles
think Little Black Corset
but you can have one in any colour you like!
Enchanting: adj: /in’tʃɑntiŋ/ meaning : "Delightfully charming or attractive"
or in other words
captivating, charming, delightful, attractive, appealing, engaging, winning, dazzling, bewitching, beguiling, alluring, tantalizing, seductive, ravishing, disarming, irresistible, spellbinding, entrancing, enthralling, fetching, dreamy
All words I would use to describe corsetry. Not just my corsetry. Any corsetry. All corsetry. That's why we - makers and wearers alike - get so hopelessly addicted to them!
The Enchanting Essentials Corsetry Collection : 2 Overbust Corsets and 2 Underbust Corsets
Every Day Corsets in Four Styles
Originally called simply the "Essentials" collection, this new, re-branded, re-designed corsetry collection is a small capsule of wardrobe corset staples incorporating every day corsetry and including two overbust corsets, an underbust corset, a little waist cincher and two skirts - the skirts are designed especially to complement corset wearing and can be worn under or over the corset. The current trend is to wear your corset over your top and under your skirt.
In the beginning, I made this every day corset collection because I wanted to provide a bespoke quality, ready to wear range of 'essential' corsetry staples which are hand made to order and give as near a custom fit as possible, using quality materials. I did that over a year ago in February 2016 when the original collection of four corsets was shot for the first time. Unfortunately that shoot was an unmitigated disaster, an inexperienced photographer, coupled with a makeup artist who didn't do 'drama' or hair, and consequently a beautiful but unhappy model - simply, when part of the team isn't on the same page, the results are always going to be disappointing. The collection failed because of it's poor presentation and my subsequent lack of enthusiasm for it.
Silk Satin Corsets - fine and light, yet super strong
As the year went on, I decided to scrap the original "essentials" and work on improving the range in various ways, with a view to shooting it properly with a team of professionals who I knew I was in tune with aesthetically. The patterns are essentially the same but the designs have been tweaked a little, and instead of using single layer cotton and brocade coutils for the rtw corsets, I decided to use silk satin fused to cotton coutil which means that although they are still single layer corsets and very light as a result, they are uber strong and durable.
The Little Black Corset - in a choice of over 90 shades of silk
The new 'Enchanting Essentials' corsetry collection is photographed in black but the garments are available in practically any colour of silk available and their totally unique feature, is the stiff underbusk which supports the busk fastner at the front. I put this into all of my corsetry as standard, but this is the only rtw range of corsets on the market that includes this feature. Why do I use them? A tip from Mr Pearl during the Oxford Conference of Corsetry 2015. He explained to me why they are important for support and i've used them ever since.
The patterns for this corset collection have an astonishingly wide range of fit because they have been tested over several years on several hundred women with bodies of all shapes and sizes. I am fortunate that I have been one of the worlds leading teachers of corsetry for some years, and therefore many ladies of all shapes and size, from all over the world, pass through my doors! I take copious notes at all of my classes, and am therefore able to compare size and fit over a wide range of body type and demographic.
Custom Corsets with a Bespoke Fit
Although this range of corsets is designed to sit in between good factory made ready-to-wear corsetry which is available on the high street in synthetic fabrics in very generic sizes, and high end bespoke corsetry which is not widely available and which can be very expensive, I can also make every style custom. So there is an option to submit your measurements, and have a fitting for the over bust corsets - if you feel you have figure anomalies. Either way, the Enchanting Essentials is a luxury ready to wear corset collection, with options, in which you will get as close to a bespoke fit corset as you're likely to get without actually commissioning, or paying for, a bespoke corset!
Miss Deadly Red wearing the Enchanting Essentials Sylphe Cincher which gives a perfect vintage nip to the waist.
Essential Corsetry Collection modelled by Miss Deadly Red
I finally shot the new collection over a year after the first with a superb team - uber talented Inaglo photography, sublime model Miss Deadly Red and makeup/hair by Mandy Rigby. I wanted the images to convey sophisticated, classic elegance because that is what the collection is all about. It worked and I couldn't be more pleased with the resulting images! Click on the video below to see some behind the scenes video from that day.
Shooting the Enchanting Essentials Corsetry Collection in May 2017
Modern Corsets with Mid-Century Style
Acutally, the original new name for this collection was going to be "New-Era Essentials" - a name which I hoped would not only convey that it was the original 'Essentials' collection re-modelled (literally) but would also capture the modern nature of the corsets combined with the mid-century style that i'm inspired by and the concept of the "little black corset" - like the little black dress, a multi use essential garment which you can dress up or down depending upon the occasion. However, when putting everything together for the website, trying to think of names for the actual corsets themselves, all of those synonyms for 'enchanting' kept flowing to me and I found myself looking up mythical or legendary female figures to fit them. Serindipidously, the images of Deadly Red couldn't have been more perfect for the 'femme fatale' archetype in all her forms and everything slotted into place quite naturally from there and I remembered one of my all time favouite paintings, Lilith by John Collier. When things fall into place so easily you know you got something right!
Lilith by John Collier, 1892
And so we have four corsets named after beguiling female archetypes, and two skirts named after the original femme fatales!