Beginnings and The Oxford Conference of Corsetry 2014

Welcome to the first posting to the deux lunes magazine. It’s been a crazy busy time here as we are excitedly preparing for the roll out of our first deux lunes corset collection as well as the official launch of deux lunes. I’ve beensketching, designing, fitting, sourcing fabrics and embellishments, and finally starting to sew the garments that we will be presenting to you. I’m so excited for the upcoming photo shoot, and the opportunity to show off what I have been doing.

With all this craziness I did find a little time to take a ‘wee’ bit of vacation. The last weekend of August I was in attendance at the second annual Oxford Conference of Corsetry held at Jesus College, Oxford, England. And after the conference I decided to spend a few days exploring Scotland. It is a country I have long wanted to visit and it did not disappoint.

Just walking the streets of Oxford and being in this storied university town were so inspirational, with all the incredible architecture and bookstores. Just take a look at my bio and you’ll see how important these each are to my designs. And the conference was such a spectacular event for me. It is such a rare occasion that a corset maker has the opportunity to be in the presence of fifty of his peers. Such a great opportunity to learn, to network, share experiences, and make new friends.

One other perk of attending the Oxford Conference of Corsetry was the opportunity to design a showpiece corset and work with top corset models and photographers to present it. Motivated by my planned trip to England and Scotland I decided to create a corset inspired by the great kilt and use tartan fabrics. I was privileged to get to work with corset model Morgana and photographer Chris Murray. You can read the full story of the Tartan Corset on Stitched Up Corsetry.

When the conference came to a close none of us were prepared to leave. The weekend had had all gone too fast. And yet Scotland awaited and I was terribly excited about boarding my train. Scotland is not known for the pleasantness of its weather and yet it provided me three beautiful days of sunshine to explore its towns, monuments and countryside.

Three days in Scotland was definitely not enough. I will have to return one day. And maybe someday there will be a full Celtic themed corset collection from deux lunes.