Louise Nason Artist in residence.
Saturday 27th June.
I visited the Chersey Museum. The museum has a wonderful collection of historic fashion dating from the 16th Century. www.chertseymuseum.org.uk
I went to see a demonstration being giving by Bridget Strowbridge on corset’s.
She has a wealth of knowledge of historical corsetry. Having worked for the English national opera as a costume designer. She also taught for many years at the London College of Fashion.
The demonstration, looked at a original corset from 1890. Bridget showed us how it would have been constructed. by showing a replica block pattern she had made. She then made an exact copy of the original to work out the construction. Interestingly the seams ran diagonally to the boning of the corset.
Biddy was very interesting and I learnt a lot about historical costume construction.
At the end of the demonstration I was lucky enought to try the corset on. It looked beautiful and held me up very straight but you could feel your bones being squeezed in and it was easy to realise why so many lady’s fainted!
I would encourage you all to visit the chersey Museum as it has a wonderful collection and you can get to see things from the archive easily.
