Hustling the bustle

The Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre's Costume Hire Department recently commissioned me to create this Victorian style corseted bustle dress in green duchesse satin. It is based on a costume that had been on their rails for 17 years was a very popular plus-sized pattern.

The dustle and draped apron front of this dress take up a lot of fabric, and the Victorians really liked all their trimmings and decorative touches and this dress is full of them. There is a velvet trim bordered with fringe as well as ribbon, and several feature buttons. The corseted bodice has satin covered piping at the seams and edges, and the sleeves have lace inserts and more buttons.

The lace-up back to the bodice means that it can be worn by people of a wide variety of sizes, which is very useful for Costume Hire as you never know who you'll be dressing.

The Costume Hire Department were thrilled with this revamped version of a favourite and have put in an order for another one in purple already!

Ruby's birthday frock

I was approached by Ruby to create her vision to knock 'em dead on the dancefloor for her 18th birthday. You only get one of those, so we sat down together and talked over her initial sketch to
work out the perfect design.

Ruby had already bought some red duchess satin and some gold oriental brocade from the local fabric shop, so I was able to get straight on with creating the perfect pattern.

The finished dress has thigh splits either side of the brocade panel, which is self-lined, and the flared sleeves are trimmed with a thin strip of the brocade also.

I had to be very careful when drafting the neckline, (there's a fine line between plunge and indecent!) and with some carefully placed darts in the bodice we made sure that there would be no scandalous 'wardrobe malfunctions'.

The finished dress really reflected Ruby's personality - bright and run and ready for a night of birthday fun, and there was definitely to be no mistaking who the birthday girl was!