Date: 2014
Origin: United Kingdom
Fabric: Distressed leather, acrylic paint, gold leaf, lace, swarovski crystals, cotton coutil, cotton cording
Brand: Julia Bremble
The corset was made as a part of a project carried out by the facilitators of the Oxford Conference of Corsetry 2014, where each designer created a corset inspired by Jesus College, Oxford. The corsets were later used as teaching tools at the conference.
The ‘Pearls of Wisdom’ corset is inspired by the Fellows Library at Jesus College; specifically the old leatherbound books, gold leafed panels, ‘pearls of wisdom’ contained within the books and the flowers in the quadrangle outside. The garment shape was adapted from a basic corset pattern block and was used as the starting point for a talk about pattern manipulation.
The corset is made of distressed leather flatlined to plain coutil, painted with gold acrylic paint before assembly, corded at the front panels like the spines of books. The cording was later embellished with gold leaf. The gold lace represents both the gold leaf panels in the library and the flowers in the quad, it is stitched onto the corset and then embellished with tiny swarovski crystals representing the ‘sparks of inspiration’.
Julia Bremble trained in pattern cutting for fashion before specialising in corsetry for the modern body, with a focus on fit, comfort and dramatic silhouette. Her creations draw inspiration from vintage design and utilise couture sewing techniques. She also owns the specialist online corset supply shop ‘Sew Curvy’, is the founder and organiser of The Oxford Conference of Corsetry, teaches at The Oxford School of Corsetry and is the author of the ‘Corset Making‘ instructional book.
Photographed at the Oxford Conference of Corsetry 2017, garment loaned by Julia Bremble.
