Following the autumnal fun with Spirit of Autumn, i decided to have a series of seasonal projects – and the next one, naturally was to be Winter.But since I couldn’t make up my mind which part of winter I like more, I have ended up with 2 sub projects; the first one, Desolation, was inspired by the bleakness of the season – the muted dark colouring, dirt, mud, rain, fog and ice; death and decay – a typical British winter for more of its duration 🙂
I wanted to include some organic bits, just as I did in the Autumn part – but it turned out to be rather tricky! in the end i settled on the lunaria pods ( honesty plant, silver dollar plant) and some twigs. once that was decided upon, the design was made…
soon after i started collating bits and pieces that would go together – chiffon, bling etc…
The corset (pattern – Sew Curvy overbust) was made in white and black sheer, with pods of the honesty plant sandwiched between the layers. The pods symbolize the rebirth – that even in death there is a seed of life hidden within, awaiting awakening once the seasons turn.
The channels are exterior, fashioned of a lovely grey tape – I used the same tape to bind the corset. Boning – usual mixture of flat and spiral steels; some of the steels can be seen between the layers of the sheer – adding a hint of a skeletal deathly character to the corset.
Additional decoration is provided by the bling – black, grey and transparent crystals emphasising the hip and bust; two big crystal brooches provide anchors for strips of chiffons – grey and black, matching the skirts, hanging in the front. They also anchor the black chiffon cape.
The skirt is on the big side and was a real fun to make – big cotton base then strips of torn chiffon are randomly attached to the base. Not the most comfortable attire to walk in, but looked impressive while stationary 🙂 . About 20 metres of different chiffon were used…
The crown is made out of frosted twigs and pearl and bead strings – all fashioned in about an hour.
Finishing the outfit was a bit hurried – originally we were hoping for snow, and since no snow was forecast, I was taking the project easy. and then one Monday evening we had a fog – a proper, dense, milky fog. next morning we were both more or less free, so we decided to shoot the thing in the morning, using the fog as a background.
Alarm was set for 6 – if it was foggy we would get up, get ready ( make up, contact lenses, hair extension etc all take time!). and go and shoot. But when i woke up at 6, no fog was about. I even got up and went outside – the ground was white with frost, but no fog. back to bed then.
And then, at 8 am, with the sun rise, the frost turned into milk white fog….
Make up etc was done in record time and we were off – I even managed to get the contact lenses in less then 5 min, a huge achievement!
It was still bitterly cold and wet – and muddy! we decided to use Harold Odell Park again – a lot of interesting places there!
and the results….
Very happy with the results – it was worth doing it with the fog, worth getting cold and getting dirty boots too…
Hope you enjoyed the pictures – all images by Pitcheresque Imagery
The other face of winter, Polaris, is already done – and will sort out the post on that soon!
and in the meantime, the corset is up for grabs at a discounted price in our shop!