Originally published at RavenDreams - Confessions. You can comment here or there.

Just finding it really hard to try and sell pants when the world is falling apart. Just so many juxtapositions of BLUSH IS THIS SEASONS NEW COLOUR vs TRUMP TO ADOPT 20% VAT TO BUILD A WALL to WHAT MODELS REALLY EAT vs MAY TO SELL OFF NHS TO THE US. I just want to scream all the time! And the number of people who are just gormless with each new announcement!

Let me clear things up for you.

1. No one likes Trump ESPECIALLY not the GOP. Their pick for president is Pence. So they are supporting and letting Trump do whatever he wants so they can later have cause to hang him. LITERALLY as hanging is still on the books as punishment for treason. So no one is stopping or pointing out the huge hypocrisy (these are the things he had the Repblican nation shouting LOCK HER UP at Clinton) of Trump’s recent gaffs:
   • Using private email servers
   • Linking government social media accounts to non secure private email accounts. Staff publishing secure passwords online…
   • The prolific use of Executive Orders to create new policy (major argument for Obama corruption)
   • Outright and provable lying
   • Pissing off the press (notice how Pence is keeping clean in all this – being seen as the good and reasonable guy?)
2. Pence is the GOP choice for president. They are using the antics and insanity of Trump to groom Pence in the eyes of the public. Already we are seeing papers like NYT and WP (will find refs for you later) stating they would rather see Pro-lifer Pence in office. Prime example is the Hamilton twitter battle. Trump went off the deep end while Pence issued a statement saying 1st amendment rights are a good thing. Pence is beginning to look like the voice of reason and sanity – This is the biggest gaslight of them all!
3. Brexit. What a fucking mess and now we have the same sort of American shenanigans starting up here!
   • Tories have been hell bent on selling off the NHS before this mess and now they are using “watch what the left hand is doing to mask the real action”.
   • May only wants to be PM so she will play the Pence role whilst setting up pillocks like Boris and Farage to take the fall for Tory policies.
   • Corbyn using the 3 Line Whip to force through Article 50 so that the public will hate the Tories and blame them for the economic fail that has already started, the sale of the NHS, transportation fares skyrocketing, and infrastructure government and industry falling apart. Let’s not even start with the environment.
4. Civil Disobedience. So you had a nice day out in Washington? Have a souvenir hat? GREAT! Because that is the same amount of effectiveness that Occupy Wall Street had will less litter!
   

   “Yet I’ll never forget talking with the banker in his crisp suit and air-conditioned office, looking out the window at the protesters below and just laughing, laughing, laughing. Because he knew they’d eventually be gone and nothing would change.” By Petula Dvorak, Washington Post speaking of the Occupy Wall Street movemnt.

   Protests are really missing a trick here!!!!! With all the many millions of women marching around the world there was no unified message, no unified slogan, NO UNIFIED ACTION! No the action was not the march! It was what you did after! Michael Moore attempted to give focus by creating a Phone Campaign (202-225-2031), but there is no central agenda, groups like Pant Suit Nation who created the March are doing NOTHING to move forward in any kind of a timely manner. The GOP are DEPENDING on momentum being lost and worse yet dissipated into other issues. There are burgeoning acts of civil disobedience from the State Department top brass quitting, to scientists refusing to remain gagged and opening up on twitter.

We are all screaming at every new twist and turn of policy being blasted out by our governments. But here and this is the real point. Nothing they have put out so far is an action either… It’s all hot air! This is testing the wind and public opinion. Let’s take the wall. First Trump announces Mexico will pay, but actually it’s taxes generated on goods coming from Mexico paid by the American people at 20%. Once the screaming started they judged the way the piss was falling and then announced that it was only one of many ways the money to build the wall could be generated. The hunt for the actual policy to protest is exhausting.

The GOP and the Brexiters are DEPENDING upon us all becoming jaded and losing initiative as we spend all our outrage now. Sure there is another march in April about Trump’s taxes – but numbers will be down and the next march? And the next?  We need to focus on the war not all these little battles which are actually diversionary tactics to wear us down.

We need a list and we need to check it twice. And we need to start kicking the Democratic Party.

Originally published at RavenDreams - Confessions. You can comment here or there.

As you will have guessed from my many other rants articles, I am passionate about redesigning shapewear to fit real needs not thought of by men. Like:

• How do you get in and out of it when you need to pee?
• The same goes for inconvenient times of the month.
• How it fastens and where. Can you reach the closures? Are they in a comfortable location or does it shove a load of hooks in the most ridiculous of places?
• Does it sit smoothly under your clothes and not roll down, ride up?
• How to make this sexy – because currently it is a choice between unsexy sausage tubes which totally ruins the illusion that this is the real you.

I have been playing with the concept of playsuits and body shapewear for a while. I started out with soft supportive cups in the Kate line of babydolls and progressed with redesigning knickers with the Jane panties. So part way there!

I have always felt that the best way to learn good design was to look at bad design. Hooboy! Not currently at a loss for choice with the offerings in the general market! Ok. So keeping in mind the above list, I sat down and looked at the engineering stresses of conventional shapewear and asked what part of these contraptions were necessary and which were psychological.

Shapewear is there to give you a smoother profile, take out all the lumps and bumps. In some aspects slim waist and flatten abdomen. Some also lift and shape your bum. The lovely Matilda above shows how I started with the most problem areas. I was looking at how to use the grain of fabrics and cut in the first image to flatten, in the second to lift the bum and flatten the upper back and in the final image sooth the hips to create a waist and support the bust. What I noticed was that unless you are intentionally cinching the waist, any excess material in the back and you get uncomfortable bunching and worse it makes whatever you are wearing look really amateurishly made and cheap (but not in a good way). This is one of the main reason to avoid dresses with zippers down the back.

The next stage was to drape. But Matilda is a cold herd hearted woman with no softness in her and is unforgiving. Off to the phone tree to friends and clients who volunteer as fitting models. They are a courageous group of women who will happily (or with a little grumbling) will stand in weird positions near naked in my workroom gossiping while I stick pins in them. The result of that first attempt was a powermesh playsuit called the Elizabet (after the Countess of Bathroy because of the deep red colour chosen. Almost decided to do the photo shoot in the bath…;) The fit is lovely, but it is a playsuit as opposed to shapewear.

With what I had learned from the Elizabet, I began to draft what I hoped would be something you could wear under a business suit – The Melanie, for the working girl in all of us.

The basis for any pattern when working with stretch materials is the fabric choice. So long before I even started drawing I had been trawling the world for excellent lycra and elasticine based Chantilly and levers lace in black. It had to stretch, be strong and durable and gorgeous. Lace on its own isn’t strong enough to shape your body and and be uncomfortable having a pattern imprinted on your skin! So mounting the lace onto a super soft, super strong powermesh is an ideal solution.

For this iteration a lot of consideration and experimentation went into the details. I wanted it to be sexy, but more than that I want to be able to wear it under a dress OR a pair of trousers and not have to get undressed whenever I needed the loo. Traditional bodies will have hooks or spans in the centre of the crotch.

WHY?!!!!! Who the hell ever thought that would be a good idea?!! The gymnastics to grab both ends alone are just unbelievable! And then put it WHERE?

Again, taking a page from Victorian lingerie, my thought was to create an overlapping open gusset to provide modesty and comfort. The back sections of the pantie  hook together in the centre providing lift and smoothing the hips. To go to the loo, simply unhook the back and open the gusset. The added benefit is the ability to take this from the office to playsuit… not necessarily changing location.

Originally published at RavenDreams. Please leave any comments there.

Yes, I did finish the piece in the time limit. No, I haven’t posted until now… Life got in the way.

The Pros

Extraordinarily comfortable! Doesn’t get tangled when  constantly toss and turn in my sleep. It is pretty, sexy and sexy. Did I say sexy? And yet, as long as I didn’t turn around, I would be happy to answer the door in them. Very modest from the front The fabric is the right kind of weight and texture. I upgraded the lace for something softer tot the touch and classier to the look and more robust to wash.

The Cons

Designing a really posh hospital gown… It’s not exactly warm.

What will I do differently?

For the next version I want to add some of the ideas that can be found in this gold lame/silk evening dress from the 1920′s.

The sleeves were too long and a bit too voluminous so I nee to take them in. I don’t like the hospital-ness of the back but do like the openness so I will look to angle the back towards the front and not have a straight drop. It definitely needs MORE LACE! At the neck, at the sides – I want to emphasise the angles ala Deco. Also not entirely entranced with the waistband on the knickers so that will need to be refined.

I will be using a ballet pink silk satin and ivory lace for the next one! So stay tuned!

Love, Abi

Originally published at RavenDreams. Please leave any comments there.

Ok – so life has been overly busy  and in the tradition of having a gazillion projects half finished… Great design comes from necessity.

The heat is driving me potty and I need sexysexy pajamas that are comfy in this heat!

Pet peeves:

• I hate bunching around my legs
• I turn over a lot and hate non-flexible straps that then cut off the circulation in my arms
• …also get twisted around my body so that I have to stand up to re-sort everything

Problem solving:

So French knicker shorts sorts the bunching problem. On open backed T-shirt design will hopefully stop the twisting and strap problem. The brevity and looseness of both will help with the heat.

Now how to make it sexy? A very light weight black satin with side lace see though detailing…

Here’s my quick sketch

Originally published at RavenDreams. Please leave any comments there.

Ok onto pattern cutting.

So I am using non-stretch fabric in the main bodies of both the top and knickers. This means I have to think about ease. What is ease? Ease is the space between you and your clothes that allows for “ease of movement”.  When you move your clothes to pull, cut, bind or rip (when you bend over…). Mostly in lingerie you work with negative ease – stretch fabric needs to be stretched to fit and this requires a lot of Maths! So I will recheck a standard UK20 measurements and add 4 inches/6cm tothe overall meaurements as waist, hip and bust. I will also add a couple of inches to crotch and the rise.

These are my first drafts. They will change at each stage. When I cut out the draft pieces I will redraw the shapes with my scissors. When I cut out the fabric I will redraw. When I sew I’ll redraw with the sewing machine. Changes will be made along the way and when I am finished those changes will be transferred to the original drafts and then redrawn again. This is a process and being flexible is key.

At some point when cutting out the French knickers I decided to make them ouvert.

And here’s my first fabric choices from stock fabrics:

Originally published at RavenDreams. Please leave any comments there.

Gussets! We all hate the cheese wire of centre front and centre back sewn panties and the camel toe that inherently comes with too small or too narrow gussets. Traditonally gusset front seams are placed just at, to be plain, the vulva. This can be very irritating and absolute hell on a very sensitive area. Placing the seam there may be more visually attractive, but it does not address the health issues many women face.  First I made the gusset both wider, to cup rather than cut, and then longer to extend over the sensitive areas and to help you feel more protected against possible exposure or accident. Then I employed Victorian tailoring techniques usaully only applied to jacket or bodice fitting to create a seam line that allowed for more fullness right where a mature woman needs it. The back seam uses the same techniques creating a more luscious curve to your bum while also reducing bunching and wedgies. What’s the point of having expensive elegant underwear if you are always having to pull it out of… well, you get the point.

And, I hadn’t thought of it until this very moment, but for those who practice a more “glamorous lifestyle” – there’s more room to tuck too! We do try to encourage diversity!

So – higher cut legs, a waist line that wraps around your hips, a specifically tailored gusset to a woman’s needs – The Plain Jane isn’t so plain.
What I find so disappointing in other designers is that they say they are creating “NEW” lines that are “innovative”, but actually they are only the same old cut and patterns but in different colours. Here are two examples. Can you tell which top designer or high street shop produced which pant?

It is the same pattern and the same finishes from all three companies.

As I move forward, my challenge will be to take my pattern and take it from Plain Jane to uber sexy and truly innovate! My first foray is the Low Rise Jane.

Ever buy hip-hugger jeans and have the back of your knickers embarrassingly exposed whenever you bent over to… well do anything? This Low Rise version of The Jane holds to all of the principals of The Jane for comfort and stability. These are designed to hug the top hip and then dip into a well fitting, secure V.  There are other versions on the market that have elastic that crisscrosses over the back linking the two sides like a waistband. But with the way that this Jane has been designed there the V is so secure it wont fall off your hips and as it is attached to the Jane gusset, no bunching or riding up either.

You may now bend over with confidence!

These and all the current versions of The Jane can be found at the following online outlets

@Etsy and @Big Tattoo Planet

Anyhoo tell me what you think and if you have any suggestions on what you would like the Jane to do next!

Originally published at RavenDreams. Please leave any comments there.

Over the Christmas period I received quite a few requests for petite sizes. So I sat down and had a really hard think about the business. Where was this all going? The demand seemed to be there for my designs in all sizes and frankly it would add to my sales. As a startup I could definitely use the income.

What would be the pros and cons of going full size range? The pros are obvious; greater audience, more money, larger ability to place product in a wider (pardon the pun) market place,  more sales…

And the cons? I spent the first year of the business doing research into sizing and fit for plus size. It’s basically an open frontier where no man, thankfully, has tread accurately before. Refining patterns for each design in each size has taken a great deal of time and tester research. Adding another 6/7 sizes would double my workload and require a change in mindset to understand the needs of smaller body shapes. Face it, I’m no stick and I’m never going to be. Even when I was a teenager I had hourglass curves and Lara Croft’s measurements. I have no empathy at a skin level for regular sizes.  I do not have the instincts for it. I would be fighting against my nature and therefore design garments not fit to purpose. Basically I would suck at it.

The time and research it would require is prohibitive.

The second big con is why I entered this business in the first place. A normal range person (XS/S/M/L) can walk into any high street store and find something on the racks in their size. It may not be a perfect fit. It may not be a wonderful colour. But there will be choice.  I can’t. There won’t be anything. Sales people will look at me and wonder with looks of disgust on thier faces as to why I have even entered the store. Even the many stores who have jumped on the plus size bandwagon will only have the rare one or two items in XL which will have been ripped off the shelves as soon as they came in.  And they will have been basics in bad colours from cheap fabrics and just plain tacky.

Plus size women do not have choice. There are only a few high street chains in the UK who go above a size XXL. There are a few more online options but most often when I find something truly genius it is out of stock (something I have ranted about in the past) or size selection only goes up to an XL, or worse yet an L.

I started this business because I wanted choice. That everything out there did not fit, was cheaply made and just plain tasteless. The process of even looking for garments was humiliating.

We deserve choice of beautifully designed and manufactured to the highest quality clothing that is well and attractively presented by people with a true empathy for the client. Ultimately I didn’t get into this to get rich,  although it would be nice. So my apologies to those who may be offended by my decision,  but the company is RavenDreams Plus Size Lingerie.