picture my daughter took

My little 4-year old daughter took this picture. It was originally so dark that you could only see the mannequin sort of rising ominously out of the blackness, but then my husband lightened it up, and it turned out to be this great grainy grunge looking picture. Good job, Brynn! I sure hope that kid wants to be a corset-maker when she grows up. *cross fingers*

On another note, THANK YOU THANK YOU for the comments you've made on making my new website a better place. I do plan on splitting the corsets into sections: Renaissance, Pirate, Fantasy, Steampunk and "Customize your own". I wanted to do corresponding photos that really had the flavor of each genre. The only thing I'm worried about is that some customers might see a corset in the "steampunk" section, and think, "Oh, I can't wear that to a ren fest, because it's steampunk." But, SURELY, no one would be that dumb, right? *crosses fingers, and knocks on wood.* I didn't want this massive jumbled page with a million pictures of corsets to load, where it wasn't neatly organized into categories, but I do want people to be able to see the scope of my work, and all the designs I have kicking around in my head. Hopefully they're intelligent enough to realize that, with these types of costumes, they can be worn for almost any occasion, as long as you're creative enough with the other pieces and accessories.

The big difference between lots of my customers is how they put these things together. I have a lot of customers at ren fests who just wear the blouse, bodice, and skirt with nothing else. While it's pretty, it's very "typical bar wench" to me.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have these women who purchase elaborate hats, pouches, brooches, pantaloons, shoes, tights, belts, bracelets, rings, necklaces, bras, hair accessories, panties, and makeup to match their corset exactly. It's pretty phenomenal to see a woman that lavishly adorned. It always makes me proud. I, myself, have taken about 10 years to finally figure out how to put renaissance outfits together. It takes a LOT of little details to make a look complete and stunning. THAT is one of the things I'm planning on putting in my magazine/catalog.....Oh MAN! It's our next project after the website is done, but this thing is going to be so awesome! The more I think about it, the more excited I get!

My magalog is going to be the ONLY one out there that actually empowers women, rather than degrading them and subconsciously making them lower their self esteem. Seriously, the next time you are in the grocery store, and you look over the features in the women's magazines, see if you can spot any of them that encourage you to love yourself and make the best of yourself. OOOh, boy...I'm getting long-winded and I didn't mean to. I can't go into this here, but just know that my magalog is going to be splendid! It's going to have articles about throwing away your sweatpants and busting out the push-up bra. It's going to talk about getting back in touch with the romantic "damsel" inside of you, rather than the frazzled "let herself go" mom or the 20's something girl who is pissed at men and dresses like it. I just think that if women were able to EMBRACE their femininity, and wield it like a weapon, there's no telling what we could do or accomplish. And it doesn't really happen because of BIG things....it's all little, daily occurrences that shape you and mold you into a powerful woman. I'll try to help you guys, AND ME, find those. ;) So, on that note, let me know what you would like to see in a magazine. Really dwell on it, and tell me about how you want to view yourself, and how you want to feel. I think that, together, we can amass this army of corset-wearing seductresses.