In a recent newsletter I sent out to my readers I announced that I was recently named a Greater Columbus Arts Council grant recipient, and today I would like to share with one of the works I created in the collection which was part of my proposal to this organization. I named each of the corsets in this collection after cities that were great centers of the Art Nouveau movement. The corset pictured is called the Parisian Underbust. It features a color-changing patent leather which shifts from teal to plum. All the corsets in this collection are luxuriously adorned with genuine 23kt gold clad leather ornaments. I wanted to make something that looked more like jewelry than mere clothing.

The primary focus of my grant project was to develop this unique technique of gold on leather and to explore how it is amplified by texture and dimension. In the Parisian Underbust, I custom designed and hand-tooled a flowing Art Nouveau iris flower for the center of the corset. The boning casings were similarly treated to a stamped effect, calling to mind the Aesthetic Movement with it’s subtle Eastern influence. The process is deliberate, tantalizingly slow, and very ‘Old World’. It requires a lot of labor and patience but it produces an inimitable effect. All these couture details are what sets Wilde Hunt Corsetry apart from mass produced ‘fast fashion’.

To commission a Wilde Hunt corset is to own a custom made work of art.

I look forward to sharing the rest of the collection with you!

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