If you’re a Dr. Who fan, you’ve likely seen it by now- the Tardis Corset Nikki Cohen of Mayfaire Moon is in the middle of building. Nikki is a friend of mine. She is a professional corset maker, and very good at what she does. What she isn’t, is an engineer of wacky technical matters. But she knows someone who does that sort of thing.
Me.
I seem to have a history of doing this(I’m also the same person who helped Jay Maynard build his Tron suit) but… I’m the one who made the panels. I’ve seen some comments not understanding a few things. I’d like to clear those up, for the record.
1. The corset is nowhere near finished. The photo that’s now gone all around the internet was the shot of the practice placement of the stomach panels. It’s not nearly a finished product. It’s barely even a partially finished product. Please for the love of small fuzzy creatures stop judging it as if it were finished product. The photo in question is here:
See the pins at the top of the panels? They were there to temporarily hold them in place. It’s just a process shot, okay?
2. There are six panels in total, not just the two. Here, look, I’ll show you:
3. The reason they’re plastic and not an integral part of the corset body itself is they will be lit with EL wire. The corset body itself is silk and therefore, quite opaque and cannot be lit in the same way. Hence, the acetate.
4. The little door is clear because there will be something behind it. I had offered to paint it white as a temporary move, but Nikki declined. It will be rigged with a little sound mechanism that will play whatever it is that’s supposed to play when you open the door. (I have personally never seen a single episode of Dr. Who.), and some kind of image on the inside of the door.
5. These panels were the second round of prototype panels(you can see the first set at my flickr account). Since my building them, I’ve figured out a way to solve the last remaining problem- the windowframes, which are too inexact for my taste. However, the solution takes more time than we had to build *this particular* physical corset. It will be solved in the next one. We know the windowframes are not perfect- really, I promise, no one knows better than we do. However we were on a very tight time frame with this particular garment. It will be fixed in version 3.0. Look, it took 10 Tardises (Tardises? Tardii?) to get to this model. It’s only taking me three to perfect it. Give me a break, here. 🙂
I think it’s awesome that so many people like Nikki’s idea(and for the record it’s entirely her idea– Im just helping her engineer it.) She’s a wonderful corset maker, and a lovely person. I’m amazed(and so is she!) that this single image has traveled so far. But like a game of telephon(tardis phone box? I don’t know, run with it.), it’s sort of gotten distorted in the process. It’s a work in progress. We will perfect it.
We promise.
Damned Good Design 