Catwalk model: Ethel
Hair & makeup: Sammm Agnew and team using Face Lace
Jewellery: Prong
Outfit: Peach Ida set
We all have a bit of a soft spot for the Peach Ida set. It's simple, elegant and easy to work with, and the peach silk panels would have been the perfect place for us to do a bit of lace applique. And yet... we didn't. Partly that was because we were concerned that we might spoil the lines of the bralet - there's a surprising amount of shaping in that top! Partly it was because mentioning "lace" around Joe is a bit like mentioning "ice cream" around small children, and nobody wanted to have to break his heart again.
We also discovered that when we tried using black lace over the peach panels, what we came up with was...
Well, almost. The lace we had was just florals, no cheeky wording woven in. But the effect was much the same, and while it was a good idea... we'd already done it!
So, we reluctantly decided that we'd have to leave the peach panels alone. In a way, that actually gave us a bit of freedom, as we realised we could think outside of the garments themselves. Thinking of embellishments that didn't have to go on the garments led us to a massive roll of stretchy black fringing, and the tasselled Peach Ida was born!
The first and most obvious section was underneath the bottom edge of the band on the bralet. We knew we'd have to work carefully, because that band is stretchy. Luckily, so was our fringing, so we stretched both of them out, pinned them and sewed them together, making sure that the tassels lay on top of the bralet. If we'd wanted to hide the edge, we'd have sewed the tassels to the inside of the bralet, but we were concerned that if we did, the edge might irritate Ethel's skin.
We knew that the first tassels would look odd on Mildred the Mannequin, since her underbust measurement was somewhat smaller than Ethel's. But seeing the set on a mannequin was very helpful when we added the other tassels over the cups of the bralet and the top of the suspender belt. We cut those fringes down in places to give them some shape, and finished the set off with a few Swarovski crystals, which we glued on at strategic intervals over the top edges of the bralet and belt. As it happens, we probably could have added more crystals to the sides of the outfit - and if we had, they'd have matched Ethel's shoes!
Fancy trying this at home? The peach silk styles are here - we'll send out a free bra with every order this week!
