“Always beautiful & always perfect in your own personal way”
1. Custom garments/corsets constructed to fit each person individually. They are always time consuming, because whole garment made according to customer's personal measurements with opportunity to customize details. Such garments are always well-fitted, much more personalized & have higher sale prices.
2. Process of construction starts from discussion & approval by client design, searching for fabric/materials, making sketches, drawing individual pattern, making test garment, having a first fitting, alterations, conclusions, working on finishing product, creating custom embellishments & often embroidery hand work. Do not forget to allow a time frame for shipping back & forth test garment if whole process happens on long distance. It's always a lot going on behind the scenes that's why you need to be patient.
3. Timing:
High quality garments always need several fittings. Some of them even can reach up to 8 or 10 fitting sessions & take several months to make. Every piece (garment) as a human body is unique & needs individual techniques & calculations.
Note: There are situations when garment can be made without fitting sessions at all. This step required agreement between customer & corset-maker.
4. Toile (also known as Mock-up) is a Test garment made by corset-maker/couturier to test a pattern. Toile (Mock-up) constructed from coutil (special cotton fabric for corsetry), supported with boning & shaped as your future garment. Toiling is a necessary step that allows to check fit & make alterations to your block (pattern) to insure perfect fit. Sometimes it takes more than one fitting session to get right results in pattering. The common reason for more fitting sessions is changes in design & a lot of modifications during fitting. Everything will be decided after your first fitting process.
5. Fitting session in person - process that takes place local in the corset-maker's/ couturier's workshop. Meeting client in person enables the corset-maker to discuss details tet-a-tet, take professional measurements, assess posture & body shape to make unique modifications to the garment.
6. Fitting on distance - process that takes place on distance. Testing garment (Toile, Mock-up) required to be shipped to client in order to make further alterations to the pattern. Clients must take their own measurements, select garment/fabric/design from photo. All communication happens on distance often via e-mail.