Making the peacock outfit

Benita’s peacock outfit for her birthday was a considerable feat in many ways. The concept of creating a peacock outfit was one that Benita had strongly suggested from the first consultation, and was one I was very happy to take on. Charged with making a corset, knickers and full 6ft peacock tail was a challenge I was looking forward to.

Upon further discussion I found out to my worry that Benita was in fact allergic to feathers…so a solution had to be found about getting feathers safely away from her skin. It was decided that the tail would be sufficiently far enough away from raw skin to risk it, and that instead of putting real feathers on the corset they would be embroidered on instead.

As with all bespoke commissions I made a mock up of the corset and fitted it before deciding upon the design and placement of the embroidery. In total the embroidery took me about a day to complete and mount onto the corset fronts before I could stitch the rest of the corset together.

In the meantime I think I bought about 500 feathers for the train, but after placing them on the train to see what they looked like I realised that I was going to need a whole lot more. In fact I think that between myself and the guests we bought that particular supplier out of peacock feathers that month. There were many technical problems about applying the feathers to the train but eventually I settled upon a method that meant I could stitch the majority on with a machine.

We finished Benita’s outfit with a peacock head-dress, and some short bloomers trimmed with black broderie anglais lace. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the party myself  so when I received the photo’s I was overjoyed at how marvelous and happy Benita looked for her birthday.

Chrissie Nicholson Wild
Curve Couture
29-03.09