The more I read about and see the newer designs from Dark Garden, the more I’m impressed with the availability of wonderful corsets for men. Maybe it’s just a part of the steampunk genre, but it seems like there are more corset options for men (that are designed specifically for men) than ever before.
Dark Garden updated their website recently and seem to be focusing a bit more on the higher fashion types of corsets. For custom corsets, though, I’m sure that some serious boning lies underneath! While the price of a Dark Garden corset may be a bit higher than other outlets, l love that the price reflects the fact that Dark Garden employs folks from the San Francisco Bay area – a notoriously high cost of living area.
In this video from the Dickens Fair, Autumn Adamme (Dark Garden founder, owner) describes a bit of male corsetry history:
And, in this photo gallery from the Edwardian Ball, you can see a ton of examples of men wearing corsets that were designed with both the male figure and male fashion in mind.
This summer has been a difficult one for many, many reasons. In reflecting lately on why I haven’t posted anything to this blog in such a long time, I came to the realization that I lost some of the joy in this blog and in corsetry for awhile. Looking back to the start of the summer, and especially to May, I think I was just sad about the loss of Amy Crowder – and, for reasons above and beyond corsetry. Her philosophy of life struck a chord with me and I wonder sometimes who else shares the same views on life, the universe, and beyond!
I think the impact was that I avoided this blog. There were many times that I wanted to post something, but I had this huge block against actually following through and doing so. Maybe it was my subconscious knowing that if I actually came to this site I would face directly and feel many of the things that I was trying to avoid. I don’t know.
Either way, I’ve felt re-energized lately and am excited to post regularly again. So many interesting and beautiful creations have surfaced over the past few months. I’m curious what others think about them and about where some of the regular readers are in their mindsets.
Marcelo, from Ferrer Corsets sends some photos of a new corset. As Marcelo describes:
Look, here it goes the new pictures of me in my new corset.
This piece was made by me too, in white german coutil, designed to extreme tight-lacing. The corset take off about 35cm in the waist, Not closed at all in the pics, I think its gonna take time and tight-lacing with this new one until I close the corset.
In addition to the male corsetry from Marcelo, there are some gorgeous photos of women laced into his creations. Check out, for example, this pic and this pic of a beautiful woman corsetted.
There were many reasons why a Wasp Creations corset was the de facto standard for tightlacing corsets. I remember several years ago, when I was still quite young, visiting Amy and feeling awed by how she had taken an “old craft” and infused it with so much innovation. Below I list just a few of Amy’s corset innovations that stand out the most to me.
(1) The shape of her corsets. Not quite a true pipestem and definitely not an hourglass. The Wasp Creations shape, with the extended waistline, was exactly what I was looking for in a corset.
(2) The zipper. I remember asking Amy whether the zipper was durable enough to handle the rigors of daily tightlacing (how naive I was then…!). Rather than giving me an answer of “of course,” she instead drew from having crunched the numbers and quoted some ratio of how much stronger the zipper was compared to a traditional closure (e.g., “the zipper can handle 32 times more force…”).
(3) The integrated lacing protector. This was the one innovation that stood out the most to me. It was simple, it was creative, and it solved a very clear problem. Brilliant.
(4) The thick, flat steel underbusk. This is such a signature of her corsets. After having worn corsets that have a flimsier underbusk, I came to appreciate how much more structure and support the thick underbusk provided.
(5) The fit. However she did it, the corset fit perfectly. Her methods of fitting corsets designed for tightlacing just worked.
Add to the above the durability of her work (I’ve had mine now for more than 3 years…it has stood the test of time) and it’s clear why people simply fell in love with Amy’s work. Amy’s innovations in corsetry inspire me to think more creatively about the work that I do and see ways to make things that have been around for hundreds of years better.
For those who do not already know, I’m terribly sad to note that Amy Crowder of Wasp Creations has died. If Amy touched your life – as she did mine – please take a moment to honor her in your own way.
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