Red Brocade Corset Set

I drafted this for a client who told me, at the first consultation, that her sister's wedding had four hundred guests, the family aso ebi colour was red, and she had no intention of being one of four hundred women in a red dress that night. So we kept the family colour and threw out the family silhouette.

The bodice is built around her, not around a reference. The brocade is a hand mounted floral in crimson and antique gold, set onto a corset shape that holds her ribs the way a sentence holds its meaning. The neckline is single shoulder. The back is closed with a hidden zip and twelve hand stitched eye hooks, because zippers loosen during a long evening and an aso ebi night is always longer than anyone predicts.

The skirt is red tulle over a silk lining, generous on purpose, cut to skim the floor so she could move without thinking about hems. She wore it to the dinner. By the second course, three women had asked her who made it. By the after party, one of them had quietly booked a fitting.