June, July, August and September have been ridiculously exciting months for me and my little company Sew Curvy Corsetry.
There was the article in my local paper which I mentioned in my last post...
Which led to the radio interviews on BBC Radio Oxford also mentioned in the last post. In August Lou one of the presenters of the morning breakfast show came to my studio to record a series of 4 features with me for her breakfast show. She was with me for about an hour. I had made a corset to her measurements so that we could pretend she was a customer coming for a fitting and the "oooh!" factor could be caught live.
Lou was lovely and seemed very interested in my work. On her list of questions to ask, she had a question about cheap Chinese corsetry. I'm happy to say that she was so interested in what I was saying about quality hand made corsetry, that she forgot to re-visit the Chinese question and it was never mentioned either in private or in air. Hooray!
Now before Lou came to record those features with me, she happened to mention to the TV people that she would be interviewing me ... they asked if they could come too! So hey presto, I found out I was to be on TV ... but another day. That day dawned when I had a class - they wanted to use that angle for added interest and my lovely students were very game.
I was expecting a whole film crew to arrive, but no! Just a camera man and Lou and a couple of microphones. That's all! The whole thing took half an hour to film 2 minutes of footage. It was very exciting and glamorous!
As if all that wasn't thrilling enough, a few weeks later I was contacted by the PR company acting for Universal Pictures to help promote the new Keira Knightly film, Anna Karenina. They wanted me to make a presentation to several online journalists all about corsetry. It was to be an evening of "corsets and cocktails" where I would give a presenation, a fitting demonstration, a little sewing lesson, and let the girls try on some of my finished bespoke corsets. It was a really fun evening in Soho.
The offices of the PR company were very swish, there was a giant Shrek in the lobby as this company also represent Disney - Infact they represent almost everyone there is to represent in film and TV! Here's the boardroom all set up and ready.
Doesn't it look lovely? It so happens that this company's logo is the same colour pink as my own logo! Serendipidy!
I was quite nervous when I arrived there. I'd taken my presentation which detailed the history of corsets from Minoan times to the present day with a special focus on corsetry in the mid 1870's which is when the story of Anna Karenina was set, plus a n umber of corsets, and a mockup that i'd made to fit one of the journalists who'd given me her measurements in advance.
The mock up was for a fitting demo to illustrate how curve can be quite dramatic without making the waist uncomfortable or breathing uneasy, by fitting the corset properly around the hip and bust area.
After the fitting demo, the other girls couldn't wait to try on some corsets, luckily I took a few! Here are some of them. Don't they look gorgeous!
So all in all the summer and early autumn of 2012 has been a very exciting time for me and my corsetry! There is more exciting news on the horizon, more on that another day!
