TIGHTEN UP CORSETS

The corset is back. And behind its revival is a celebrity designer who loves nothing more than getting laced up himself. Photographs by John Paul Pietrus. Styling by Sophia Neophitou.(Features)

The Independent (London, England); 11/24/2001; Forrest, Emma E.

Nipped-in waists, book-balancing straight backs and pneumatic busts - the corset is back in fashion, celebrating and accentuating the female form. As part of the current backlash against millennial minimalism, designers are enlisting the help of this most fundamental and spectacular piece of womenswear. At the heart of the revival is Brighton-based South African corsetier to the couturiers, Mr Pearl, who has been creating fantastical dresses of his own as well as building tightlace corsets for Thierry Mugler, Chloe, Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Christian Lacroix and Antonio Berardi, for over a decade.

It was Mr Pearl who laced Posh Spice into her wasp-waisted Vera Wang wedding dress, created Mugler's more extreme and infamous metal biker corsets, and more recently tied Sophie Dahl into the ballet-shoe pink corset dress of Gaultier's spring/summer 2001 collection. But Mr Pearl is no ordinary fashion designer: for the last 11 years, this discreet, dedicated man has been literally living his work. As a result of eating, sleeping and working in a corset 24 hours a day (apart from in the bath), he has trained his waist to a staggeringly tiny 18 inches and modified the way he breathes and speaks. The king corsetier is himself a sensational living demonstration of the power of this transformational garment, although he doesn't seek publicity, and therefore there are no photographs of him on these pages. In the following interview, he reveals the secrets of his obsession.

What has inspired you to work with corsets for so long?

"I'm fascinated by the possibility of the manipulation of nature in the quest for beauty. It's a kind of obsession. I've always been fascinated by gardening in the sense that trees can be trained into different shapes and I think that the body is a similar tool. It doesn't happen overnight, although a corset can be donned on a very superficial level. But it also has another side to it which is a much deeper thing, understood I believe only by people who practice it. Because for as much explanation as you could possibly give, unless you really know what it feels like, it's difficult to imagine. People are horrified by it on the one hand and fascinated by it on the other, by how it is humanly possible to be constricted. But in fact it's a great comfort and extremely comfortable, if practiced correctly. Other people would disagree but I believe it is not harmful."

How does it feel, is it like a shell?

"Well it's connected to that. You feel quite vulnerable without it, like a beetle without its shell. You feel deflated, wrong somehow. It gives me a great kind of reassurance, I feel more prepared for things. I believe that to be good. I like to have good relations with people so that's my focus. I do not care for disagreements or misunderstandings with people."

How does wearing a corset yourself affect the way you make them?

"I began to wear corsetry because I really wished to understand what it felt like. And I now also know certain things that could pertain to making a corset for somebody else, although everybody differs greatly so what might be relevant to one is not relevant to another. I have studied corsetry through my own physical experience of it, and I believe that's the only way I can expect other people to wear my work or to be laced tightly. If I was portly, I don't feel that would be correct."

Has anyone found it difficult to wear your corsets?

"When you work for the couture shows, the situation is very stressful. The models are very busy, they are running around, maybe they've done three shows, maybe they haven't eaten or slept, then they come to the show where they will be laced very tightly. This is not correct. To be absolutely poured into a tight corset in three minutes, the reaction of the body is extreme. I've seen girls very stressed backstage due to my work, fainting and so on, and that's not what I intend."

What was the most exciting project you've worked on?

"I had a very exciting time working with Thierry Mugler. It was so extreme: using 33 people to make a piece; working 24 hours a day, to make it, embroider it, have 12 fittings. It was really done properly, not rushed. Unfortunately with the Sophie Dahl Gaultier dress it was not possible to do the correct fittings with her, she was very busy. She was a great pleasure to work with; it wasn't easy for her because it was a very difficult dress, and there was only one fitting, which is not enough for corsetry. You need a minimum of three and you can go up to 12. The fitting is done in a corset toile. All the marks are made on this toile. If the alterations are very great, then you make another toile and so it goes on. When the toile fits correctly that's when you work in the chosen fabric."

Why do corsets keep coming back into fashion?

"People are fascinated with the body and there has been a great movement towards plastic surgery and intervention. Corsetry doesn't require one to go to a hospital, it just requires a little discipline and the results can be spectacular. You do not need to have liposuction, you do not need to have breast enlargement, you do not need to go and have your thighs drained. The shape that people have become obsessed with is very straight, very up and down, almost males imposing their form on females, and I find that very disturbing because curvaceousness is very alluring. Women should be very proud of their curves. Corsetry will always come around because it's a very ancient practice, linked to ritual. The great mystery of the marital corset and the untying of the laces, it has a wonderful mythology. That a woman was not eligible for marriage unless she had an 18-inch waist, I find this exquisite. The waistline is very malleable and people should not be scared of the possibilities of tying it in. Only the ones who do so will know and appreciate exactly the merits of it and the possibilities of altering your body without having to go to a doctor.

"Corsetry has been the foundation of all women's clothing over the ages. It's important that people should not forget this, elegance requires a foundation. Couture requires it too. People don't sympathize with that today: the notion of comfort is stretched to one layer of easy care. These days people are more fascinated by the complications of a voicemail on their mobile phones than unseen sophistications."

Do you think you are old-fashioned?

"My work is not about being fashionable. I do not follow fashion at all. I'm interested in an ideal, a kind of expression of elegance, which really has nothing to do with fashion. I do not dream about the next in-colour, or the next hemline or the next silhouette, to me there is only the manipulation of a very fine silhouette, which is a tight one. Corsetry is the deepest, most intimate, most enhancing possibility physically and I'm fascinated by this. Corsetry presents endless, almost unobtainable, possibilities, it could always be tighter, more beautiful, longer in the front. The limit is physical - outward appearances are endless."

COPYRIGHT 2001 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.