I’m a little addicted to corsets. It’s not enough that I make my own, I feel compelled to collect some of the gorgeous work created by my colleagues. In my collection, I have several Sparklewren corsets. A Sparklewren corset is an art piece as much as a garment and I admit some of them I treasure purely for their aesthetic value – they’ve rarely seen wear. The notable exception is […]
At first glance, it may seem a bit strange to have a £500 corset as this week’s Sale Lingerie of the Week. Yes, it’s been reduced from £1200 (just over $1700 USD) to less than half that (just over $700 USD), but that’s still an undeniably lavish sum for most people. Yet Sparklewren is undeniably worth it. If you’ve dreamed of owning a Sparklewren creation, and if her couture designs […]
The 2015 Oxford Conference of Corsetry fell a scant five weeks before my wedding date. Flying in the face of good sense, I attended anyway. I had other reasons to be in England, and one of them was the undeniable pleasure of spending an extra day with my corsetmaking colleagues, taking pictures in the Sparklewren showroom. Sparklewren, Karolina Laskowska, Vanyanís, Emiah Couture, Holly Rafaela, and Pop Antique (that would be […]
Whenever a designer asks if they can send me an exclusive, the answer is almost always yes. And when that designer is Jenni Hampshire, of Sparklewren fame, the answer is most definitely yes. Many of you know that we really enjoy supporting independent designers here on TLA; I personally see it as part of our mission to feature talent that’s apart from the mainstream. But I won’t deny that mission […]
One of my favorite visual corsetry effects is fan-lacing. While it looks beautiful, with its perfect symmetry and matched columns of wraparound, criss-crossed lacing, it also has a very practical purpose. As fancy and complicated as it appears, fan lacing during its heyday was revolutionary for simplifying the process of getting dressed! A Very Short Explanation of Fan Lacing Many people are familiar with the basics of a corset, and […]
