Charlotte: Behind The Scenes of our Corset Collaboration

I’ve always been captivated by the intricacy + craftsmanship of a beautifully made corset. The way it shapes the body + completely transforms your silhouette is magic, + it’s long been a dream of mine to create one for EOB.

When I met Beth of Orchid Corsetry, I instantly fell in love with her artistry (+ with her)! After 5 years of dreaming + planning together, it feels perfectly fitting that this collaboration is the grand finale of our 10-year anniversary collection. Beth truly is the queen of corsetry, + I proudly own many of her breathtaking pieces. Creating the Charlotte Corset together has been nothing short of a dream come true. Read on for Beth's words in a behind-the-scenes peek at our process.

—Naomi, Edge o' Beyond Founder + Designer

GUEST POST FROM BETH, FOUNDER + DESIGNER AT ORCHID CORSETRY

orchidcorsetry.co.uk

By now, I hope you'll have caught sight of the newly released collaboration with stand-out independent lingerie brand Edge o' Beyond, as part of their 10th anniversary collection! It's special for so many reasons, neither of us have ever done a collaboration before, and this is EOB's first foray into corsetry! But ultimately, I'm just so very proud of what we've created together, and I feel it really brings together what makes our brands unique and special.

I thought it would be fun to let you in on what goes into a collaboration like this, and to introduce you to some of the people who are making your Charlotte corsets. The increasing awareness of "who made my clothes" is something I wholeheartedly support, and over the last few years, I've spent a lot of time with this incredible team!

Naomi, founder of Edge o' Beyond (EOB) first brought up the idea of us collaborating back in 2019. I've been so grateful for the way she has reached out to me, and supported me as I try to develop Orchid in new areas, and being considered for something as important as their 10th brand anniversary collection was an enormous blow to the old imposter syndrome! It did take us until Summer 2023 to begin planning this in earnest, but once we got going, things started to flow quickly. 

It all started from this sketch, bringing together the two designs that we had agreed to base this piece on: EOB's outstanding Charlotte range and my best selling Seirian waspie. My initial design used the scallop edge of their signature embroidered tulle to dilineate the waistling of the corset, but after a suggestion from Naomi we decided to angle those panels to follow the sweep of the hip arcs!

I visited the South Wales atelier in-person for almost all the sampling, and the head machinist Tracey and I have spent days and days, heads together, problem solving, note taking, experimenting, begging the onsite sewing machine genius James to make us special folding attachments, and, inevitably, unpicking stitches! Each sample corset we created would raise another question, or suggest another small alteration in the pursuit of perfection. The thing it's important to get across, is that corsetry is really complex to try and make in a time constrained, efficiency focused setting like this. Adding in the complexities of a design like this, and the new techniques that need to be established to make it possible, and you have quite a puzzle on your hands. I feel confident in saying that most brands would have tried to cut this design back to something more basic, and I give EOB so much credit in having faith that we could make this work.

As our sampling progressed, we tested the fit on models of different sizes and heights, along with the accompanying lingerie range, to make sure that the corset sat well with the other pieces. This resulted in us making tiny adjustments to length and shape so that everything flowed more effectively. From our first sample we have changed the mesh type we used dramatically, developed a new version of the embroidery that showed more detail on the small panels of the corset, changed the way we pad the hip arcs, changed the order of construction to allow us to make the corset more neatly, and created new attachments for the sewing machines to ensure a beautiful result.

Most of the Edge o' Beyond creative team work from London, but we have managed a few days where we all met up at the atelier to make progress on the design, JoJo and Naomi are such warm and hard working people, so I always looked forward to catching them in person. Normally we're all WhatsApping each other back and forth, but it hits differently when you're all in the same room, looking at things in detail!

Some of you will know that this is the same team that made my Heledd corsets, so this was already one of my favourite places to be, and the faces were already familiar! But there is something very "Through The Looking Glass" about setting foot through those doors, driving through the rocky hills and villages until the town opens up beneath you. There is a kind of focused chaos about the workrooms, competing radios from upstairs and downstairs, the grind of the cutting bandsaw sliding through fabrics with millimeter precision, the elevator delivering a new batch of pieces for the sewists upstairs to whisk into shape. There is so much skill, knowledge and ability in that building, and every time you think you know it all, someone will surprise you! 

Read Beth's original post here

Photography by Will Keeler at www.thismedia.co.uk