Back to Black Kickstarter; garment geekery.

Back to Black Kickstarter; garment geekery.

68% funded and about 6 days in, let's get geeky about the garments.

In all honesty I might not be the best person to write this post, since I'm more of a "this is how I saw it in my head" person than a "I think we should use a ZZ stitch here but a flatlock there" person, but let's start and if you have super technical questions I'll go and ask someone else!

From left to right; Pankhurst Burgundy set, Black Satin Demi-Corset with Swarovski crystals, Angelou Gold set with Grace Sheer Ruffled Robe.

 

The pictures used here are a mixture of Rob Brazier's, Alex Addison's, Lydia's screenshots from the video and Morgana's studio shots. Barring the studio shots they are, for the most part, unedited and unphotoshopped.

 

The Pankhurst Burgundy Set

This started life as a mash-up of the Divine bra style, made into a full longline, the Tempest knicker, and a new suspender skirt because I was bored of the DeVille itself but clearly girdle-skirts are brilliant. The original ruched-wrap skirt was not working, though, so it got swapped out for a pencil skirt that was supposed to go with a jacket that hadn't worked out... so that's the black skirt you can see Jess wearing. The set is made from burgundy satin, black lace (similar to the Tempest lace), burgundy powernet dyed to match, and black and burgundy trims.

The bra is lightly padded, with a three-part cut and sewn cup and underwire, detachable adjustable straps, and hook and eye back. It's a full longline down to almost the natural waist, with the front being a burgundy satin centre overlaid with lace and burgundy powernet sides. The entire front has a none stretch sheer black underlay for support, stability and fit. The back is burgundy powernet with black hooks and eyes. The DD-G cup version varies in fit but not enormously in style. The top cup is burgundy satin and the bottom two parts are satin overlaid with black lace.

 

The knicker is a deep brief with a centre panel of satin overlaid with lace, burgundy powernet sides and a lace back. As the lace and satin are none stretch we put a bit extra in this to make sure you've got some wiggle room! The girdle-skirt has a centre panel of burgundy satin, covered in lace at the front and plain at the back. The sides are dyed-to-match burgundy powernet, with burgundy satin trim at the bottom and a deep but very stretchy elastic waist band at the top. There is a zip at the centre back, and the fit is that of a tight slinky pencil skirt. Our small sample fitted Morgana and Maz, while our black sample which had slightly more stretch in fitted Jess. The powernet is sufficiently stretchy to allow flexibility of fit, but the satin and zip can be put under strain if you size down. I know, cos I broke a zip on a small sample putting my 42 inch hips in :)

We also sampled a girdle and lace cape, but as the samples weren't perfect and I needed to make the Kickstarter easy enough to actually understand, they were left out. If we bust way past the target then they'll get made!

And yes, that picture should have been a mugshot :)

 

The Angelou Gold Set

If you've known KMD for a while you'll notice that this bears some resemblance to the Van Mimi, which is one of the the styles everyone regrets not buying. This time it's way more gold!

The midi-line bra has an underwired, three-part cut and sewn cup that is more of a planging style than the Pankhurt, and is a stabiliser net with a lace overlay. The bottom two parts are gold and black all-over lace and the top is a gold-foiled baroque lace trim. The gold-foiling was done especially for us and has caused no end of trouble; my attempt to gold foil lace mostly left everything (and everyone) gold foiled except the lace.

A black satin sling style section is lightly padded to provide extra uplift and support, which the front is lightly boned and made from gold and black all-over lace over black net. At the back the wings are black powernet with black hooks and eyes and fixed straps with gold adjustable sliders.

 

The girdle is a longline version with a curvy shape, though due to the length of the bra it does not come up as far as the Vargas. The centre panel is the the gold and black lace over sheer black net, with powernet sides and back, and gold-foiled lace  trim which sits flat under clothes. Six adjustable length garter tabs are finished with gold garter tabs. The knicker is a deep brief in the black and gold lace (no liner, which gives it a bit of stretch but I did check that you can't easily put your thumbs through it!) and a gold-foiled lace trim round the outside of the leg line.

It's hard to show the gold-ness of this in a flash for some reason - this image of me sorting out with Maz where the girdle would sit best is probably the most accurate!

 

The Black Satin and Black Chiffon Gowns and Robes

Thus far the most popular question had been "How long are the gowns?"

The gowns are bias cut. Normally, if you look closely at a none stretch fabric, the threads that are woven together over and under each other go vertically up and down and horizontally side to side, but in these gowns, we cut the pieces out of the fabric so that the threads run diagonally.

This uses way more fabric than straight cut and is a bit tricky to sew properly, so it increases the price, but it means that the fit is much more flexible. The exact same sample of the Grace was used on both Morgana and Jess. Morgana is petite and Jess is very tall for a woman, Morgana is a size 6/30E and Jess more of a 12/36DD.

Bias cutting does mean that telling you the measurements doesn't help though - how long the gown is depends on how wide it has to go as with stockings!

It also means the garments have no "hanger appeal" because their shape is largely about who wears them, though unlike using lycra to get that level of stretch and adaptability, bias cutting skims the figures rather than clinging to it.

 

On the left, the Grace on Morgana wearing enormous heels, on the right, on Jess, wearing imaginary model heels like you do in shoots.

 

The Grace Gown and Robe

 

The Leonie gown is based on a vintage garment, with a distinctive cowl neck and angled, bias cut top and long skirt. The neckline is offset by adjustable spaghetti straps and been fitted on a 30E, 34B and 36D/DD. The long skirt has sheer black curved chiffon side panels and is longer at the back than the front, forming a slight mermaid tail effect when worn.

The sheer ruffle gown is full on Hollywood glamour, with a fitted top and nipped in waist (at the height of most people natural waists) closed by a hook and eye. A plunge front is matched with sheer sleeves with two rows of ruffes falling past the elbow. The full, sweeping skirt is finished with three rows of deep chiffon ruffles. Fit wise, the issue is shoulders and arms as the garment is relatively free fitting round the bust and hip, so use your dress size for your top half as you best guide.

 

The Leonie Robe and Gown

 

The Leonie Gown has a 30's style V neck with wide shoulder straps, and an empire line bust with long bias cut skirt with an asymmetric sheer side panel. The back has a diamond shaped cut out and closes at the neck with a small satin covered button and loop.

The matching gown is also based on 30's designs, with a wrap design using unusual seaming to create a batwing effect, tapering to pointed wrists finished with covered buttons and loops. A full satin skirt completes the look, with a hidden tie inside and a matching satin sash for the outside to close the gown.

 

The Black Satin Demi-Corset

OK, so you're probably more excited about the cape, but put that aside for the minute and marvel at how genius a CORSET you can GET ON AND OFF QUICKLY is. (If you want to see how quickly then watch the end of this video)

The Demi-Corset has steel boning, back lacing with ribbon, a sweetheart neckline, waist tape, cotton countil lining, everything you'd expect from a corset, and enough to do a couple of inches of waist reduction (though not the 4 you can often get from our waspie). But we took out the front busk and put in a heavy duty zip instead, whoosh!

For the Kickstarter it's available in classic black (very versatile) or with Swarovski's on it, which we have to do by hand, so that shan't be my job, thank you very much!

Any more questions? Stick them in the comments and I'll update!