Publisher

Cathy Hay

While training as a teacher of Mathematics, Cathy became obsessed with raising spectacular corsets and gowns from centuries-old historical patterns and making them live and be devastatingly gorgeous all over again.

She has been sewing professionally since 1996, using the British alternative wedding industry as an excuse for her ambitious projects. She has lived and worked in New York and across New England as well as in the UK, and now works for clients around the world by the wonder of modern technology.

Cathy is the creator and publisher of both Foundations Revealed^TM and the award-winning Your Wardrobe Unlock'd^TM, which were borne out of a grand wish to help other corsetmakers and seamstresses to stay inspired and positive, maximise their skills and realise their alternative and historical fashion dreams. She is a member both of the Costume Society in the UK and the Costumer's Guild West in the USA, and taught a memorable class in person at Costume College in 2009 on the subject of corset binding!

Cathy lives with partner Demi and cats in Nottingham, UK.

Editor

Marion McNealy

Marion McNealy is the freelance Editor for Harman Hay Publications. She loves teaching others draft their own patterns and explore new ideas. Marion has a serious weakness for the straight front corsets and beautiful flossing designs of the late Victorian age.

Marion lives with her very patient husband and son in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, USA. They occasionally raise a fuss about how the projects have taken over the dining room table and the pins on the floor, but a good apple pie usually silences any further complaints.

Writers

Jill Salen

Jill Salen is a lecturer in costume, and has been producing patterns of corsets from private and museum collections for many years. She is widely employed in the theatrical costume industry and the author of Corsets: Historical Patterns and Techniques.

Jill has been a lecturer in costume at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) for 14 years. She teaches modules such as 'Corsets 1598-1990', 'Cutting on the Stand' and 'Origins of Cutting' to students at undergraduate and postgraduate level. She also supervises the costume element of shows produced by the college.

Between 1975 and 1982 she was the ladies' cutter at the Welsh National Opera (WNO), where she worked on 54 operas for designers such as Maria Bjornson and Tim Goodchild.

From 1982 she combined being a mother with the role of freelance costume maker, specialising in ladies' period costumes. She now combines her freelance career with teaching.

To enhance her knowledge, Jill has been steadily measuring corsets in museums and private collections. This, together with support from RWCMD, has led to her book - 'Corsets: Historical Patterns and Techniques' - published by Batsford in September 2008.

Always interested in fashion and costume, Jill is pleased to be a member of various costume societies, particularly the Costume Society, of which she is the secretary and archivist.

Alexis Black of Electra Designs

Alexis attended FIDM for fashion design for two years where she learned the basics of pattern drafting, but otherwise has taught herself the specifics of corsetry through her own research and experimentation. She has been making corsets full time since 2004.

Working under the name Electra Designs, Alexis has built a worldwide reputation for excellence. Her work has spread by word of mouth through online social networking groups to a point at which interested customers must join a waiting list in order to purchase an example of her skill.

The wait is worth it, however, when the lucky lady receives an art object that not only pleases the eye but demonstrates an uncommon attention to design and detail, featuring quadruple stitching and Alexis’ original modesty panel design.

Alexis lives and works in Houston, Texas, USA.

Jema Hewitt of Kindred Spirits

Jema Hewitt has over twenty years' experience in the film, bridal, television, museum and theatre costuming business. A published author and regular contributor to crafts and bridal magazines, she lectures at universities around the UK and runs workshops on corsetmaking and other subjects from her studio in Nottingham, England.

Her website, on which you can find details of all of the above, can be found here.

Christina Claridge

Christina Claridge sewed from an early age, and quickly discovered that historical costumes were much more interesting than modern clothes.

She is fascinated by all the textile arts, including knitting, spinning, weaving, quilting and embroidery, as well as sewing. However, she has recently found the limit of her skills when she started to learn bobbin lace.

Christina can be found on Ravelry.com and Livejournal as Evelyn123.

Danine Cozzens

Danine Cozzens fell in love with costume history while studying English literature at UC Berkeley. For the past 25 years she's used historic costume as a window into the past, on the premise that knowing what people wore helps a modern person to understand an earlier era. Starting as a singer at Renaissance and Dickens Fairs, she moved on to create historically-inspired events. She has served on planning boards for the Bay Area English Regency Society, the Greater Bay Area Costumers' Guild and the Art Deco Society of California.

Sunny Buchler

Sunny Buchler has been involved in historical costuming and the SCA for the last 15 years. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is a bit of a mecca for historical costuming, and moved to Cleveland, Ohio a couple of years ago. Her undergraduate degree was in costume design, after which did some graduate work at the Motley School of Design in London. She did theatre costuming semi-professionally while in college, but today costumes as a hobby, rather then a profession.

Laurie Tavan of Daze of Laur

Laurie was thrust into the costuming world when asked to not only play Mary, Queen of Scots but also to design and construct a gown fit for such a queen. Having dabbled in sewing her whole life, she found her passion in historical garments. Soon she found herself gowning other Queens and nobles at events throughout Northern California. As news of her skills spread through the historical re-enactment community, more and more commissions and awards came her way. Her home sewing studio soon colonized the living room and annexed the kitchen.

That's when she went pro. With a reputation for unrivalled attention to detail and uncompromising standards, she started a website, took commissions, and now maintains a waiting list for gowns, accessories, and corsets, her fondest specialty.

Outside the sewing studio, Laurie SCUBA dives in Monterey and worldwide, fences frequently in the classical Italian style and dances almost every night of the week. She lives in Northern California with her husband Jeremy and a parrot named Percival.

Jenni Hampshire of Sparklewren Bespoke Corsetry

Jenni began her study of corsetry initially as a route into historical costuming. Disillusioned with the arts world having completed her Fine Art honours degree, Jenni wished to pursue this new skill as a way of exploring the silhouettes, structures and fabrication of those historical and couture garments that inspired her. Enamoured with exaggerated silhouettes, it made sense to begin with the underpinnings! 

Now, from her home-atelier in Durham, Jenni single-handedly designs, drafts, cuts and stitches bespoke corsets to her client's specifications, striving always for an incredible cinch and exemplary level of quality. Whether a classic black cincher or a hand-beaded bridal corset, Sparklewren garments reflect the wishes, fantasies and requirements of the client.

Jenni is a strong advocate for study, effort, research and sheer hard work. She also believes in testing the received wisdom and constantly trying out new techniques. No corset is a wasted effort! Every small success and failure expands her knowledge and experience, allowing her to produce better, more comfortable, and more beautiful corsets, and keep these skills alive for the next generation.

Eleine Sun

Eleine Sun is a Carnegie Mellon Computer Science student with a serious passion for the art of corsetmaking and a habit of asking awkward questions to more experienced corsetmakers.

She has loved corsets since the age of 13 and began hunting down every last scrap of available information on the internet about corsetmaking in high school, and has spent over three hundred hours reading and studying corsets in the three years since. She enjoys sharing her findings and interviewing corsetieres to find the information which isn't easily found elsewhere.

Eleine has a weakness for the beautiful silhouettes of very early Edwardian era corsets, as well as any corset made with tartans or houndstooth. Eleine currently resides in North Carolina, working on her sewing and corsetmaking portfolio in hopes of applying for a Design minor at Carnegie Mellon.

Lara Greene of Lara Corsets

Lara Greene is a costume and wardrobe person from New York City and a member of the Theatrical Wardrobe Union Local #764, I.A.T.S.E. She has been obsessed with and sewing historic costume since childhood. Despite her parents' claim that "no-one makes any money playing with costumes", she has been "playing" professionally with costumes for over 14 years now. Most of her work has focused around film and TV lately but she also works with theatre, opera and print media as well.

Lara has a dangerous weakness for yard sales, flea markets and E-Bay. She collects (and covets) antique corsets (pre-1915), anything related to antique corsets, period patterns (especially the early 1900s & 1930's!), Antique lace, fabrics, trims, period garments, costume history books and periodicals, and unusual antique keys.

Lara has been kind enough to provide some of the photographs of her antique corset collection for use on this site, and we hope to talk her into taking time out of her busy schedule to write for us soon!

Laura Loft

Laura Loft has only been studying corsetry for a short time, but has discovered a magnificent obsession.

Spending all her money on books, fabrics and research, she sews from so early in the morning until so late at night that her doctor wishes she would slow down for a moment.

Her most recent project found her kitchen table covered in home-made fake breasts, with which she determined to solve the mysteries of bust gussets. Equipped with a twelve-year-old son who's her best salesman and her own boundless enthusiasm, Laura describes herself as "barmy as a box of frogs"!