Put That Hand Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me

When I first read the five senses prompt for the competition, I was so intrigued! My first instinct was to create a piece that would have contrasting experiences for the senses. Rather than having the senses work together in harmony, I wanted some senses to draw you in with their beauty and intrigue, while other senses pushed you away. I landed with the concept of a corset that looked and sounded beautiful but that you should never, ever touch and that gave off a tangy metallic smell so strong you could taste it.

The rich curves of the corset and the delicate fringed embellishment draw you in, making you want to examine the corset further, as does the gentle tinkling noise it produces. It is delicate and feminine in sight and sound. But once you approach the corset, you start to smell and taste what it is made of and get a better look at it, realizing that exploring the beauty through touch is out of the question. It makes the viewer admire the corset on my terms alone: Look, Don’t Touch.

For the pattern of the corset itself, I decided to go an overbust pattern I had that fit my dear friend Maddie, probably the only person I know who would willingly be like “yeah, sure” when I propose putting her in a corset covered in sharp objects. It was an ideal situation because I wanted something with rounded curves to offset the sharpness of the embellishment, so the overbust with gores was the perfect shape.

The construction of the corset is a very simple single layer of black coutil. I wanted ease in construction, something that would be simple to embellish but tough enough in case a snag happened here and there with all the pointy delights that would be stitched onto it. A good, solid coutil seemed like the perfect choice, and in black in case any horrific bleeding happened during the embellishment process. (Which, thankfully, it didn’t.)

Constructing the corset only took a few hours, but the embellishment took approximately 30 hours to complete, as every individual pin, nail, etc. is swing tacked to the corset so that it hangs freely in order to facilitate delicate tinkling.

The total tally of sharp things on the corset is:

• ~400 pins
• ~200 nails
• 35” of barbed wire
• 4 cut up razor blades
• A few scraps of spiral steel

This corset was a ton of fun to work on because I love the concept and I’m also a sucker for intense handwork! I couldn’t be happier with the final product; it looks (and sounds) so lovely on my model!

Dress Diary