Failures and Never Agains

What the what?? What, praytell, is this???? Well, this is me(about 30 pounds ago) along with a selection of past work that I am warning you that I will never do again. It's important to understand that there is A LOT of dang thought that goes into all of the pieces and patterns I do. Lots of patterns seem like a stupendous idea, but then when I actually sew them up, I feel hiding my face in shame. Some other ideas turn out being stunning, but they are so much work that I would have to charge $500 for them, and honestly, that's no who I feel my customer base is, and I don't WANT to cater to women dropping mortgage payment sized chunks of money on one single garment. I started this company because I wanted women to be able to get lavish, well-built corsets for an actual good price. I KNOW that I'm not the best, because if I was, once again, I would be charging closer to $500 just for underbust pieces and on up to $900 for overbust.

The thing is-I don't think I would connect that well with women who can drop that much money, because I'm not one of them. I truly don't think you can market to a community if you don't understand a thing about them. I was hoping to find other women that had a passion for romantic clothing, wanted to love and embrace their body shapes, and weren't afraid of a little attention! I can tell you right now, that's who my customers are, and I wouldn't trade them for the world.

OH, so back to the past corset patterns. The one above looks cute, but it's a B- to sew and lace on. We sold these my very first year in business, and though a lot of customers like them and gratefully, purchased them, I don't ever want to bring this back. The answer is NO. I have REALLY good reasons for how I run my company and what we make, and my main priority is that the customer can have a well fitted corset at the best price possible. Most of my failure corsets have either betrayed me by their fit or the fact that they took me too many hours of profanities, throwing scissors against the wall, and wallowing in sheer hot violence. They say everyone has a "price". Well, I don't. I'm not making certain things, no matter what people offer.

Hmm....I actually liked this one, but there were way too many things wrong with it. It was sort of a prototype of the Buccaneer, because I wanted something that had that sexy pirate feel. The buttons on this are hand-sewn on (Oh, GLORIOUS day when we found the button press and gave ourselves the ability to machine press buttons!!!) but I felt that the panels on either side of the grommets were too distracting and they were a pain in the bum to place and sew on top of the corset. I like how the lapel lays, and I might revisit that, but it would take a heck of a lot of frantic women emailing me, threatening me, and flattering me to get it done. ;)

There you go, enjoy a short gallery of past work. I'll see if I can dig up more abominations. This is therapeutic for me because I get to see how far I've come, as a person, as a business, and as a designer. The corsets we're making now are miles ahead of what we made even 2 years ago, and I sincerely hope that I HATE what I'm currently making in another five years!