Curves and decoupage :-)
As some of you will have read last week, I have a delicious new mannequin! She’s a modern re-interpretation of an antique shape (very straight-fronted, full hips and bosom, with a teeny-tiny 21” waist!) that Lucy Curtis of CorsetLacedMannequins decoupaged with vintage French and English papers. There are little adverts for lace tea-frocks, crepe-de-chine jumpers, and snippets of stories about people with names like Lady FitzAlan and Mrs Moberly Bell. If you would like a good look at her, Lucy’s photographs are far prettier than mine! Lucy has also wrote a lovely blog post about my mannequin 
Now, despite the seemingly tiny size of these mannequins, they are actually brilliantly suited to displaying standard sized corsets of 20” – 22” (closed waist measurement, so to be worn at 22” and 24” respectively). This is a rather ordinary and common size for corsetry, so it’s very useful. Underbusts and midbusts look especially good on these curvy mannequins. As the topline comes higher and the hips get lower, the fit goes off a touch, and as you can see with the 26” corset below (closing at 24”) displaying a piece that is slightly too large does result in some gapping and wrinkling.
But put a 24” underbust (to close at 22”) on her and it sits beautifully!
The above piece is, of course, unfinished, so it isn’t as close to the mannequin as it will be. But it does hint at the fun to come! I also love this mannequin as she has slightly different shaping and proportions to my two others (which are based on 1875 and 1910 silhouettes, respectively).
I do now have a slight obsession with decoupage though… I’m sure it will pass. But in the meantime, I’m having a hard time telling myself that I really do not need another one. Especially not decoupaged with a beautiful city map, for example…
Looking at Lucy’s photographs reminds me also, I either need a prettier house (ha!) or to get some sort of backdrop for photography. I’m toying with the idea of one of those simple “pop-up” flat backdrops that have a different colour on each side (eg: grey and blue) since they seem to take up the least room and are reasonably priced. A plain, flat backdrop would surely be an improvement on what I can achieve with draperies…
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