Woman in a steel blue corset dress with pleated fan shoulders and a draped chiffon skirt in an empty industrial loft

Evening and sequins · Spring · Summer

Steel blue pleated-shoulder corset dress with draped skirt

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Pleats at the shoulder, steel at the waist. A steel blue corset dress, sunray pleats fanning out over each shoulder, a chiffon skirt draped to the floor of an empty factory. Pointed black heel. I don't do soft. The chiffon does it for me. Opening night, arrive late.

A corseted steel blue dress with sunray-pleated shoulders and a draped chiffon skirt, shot on an empty factory floor.

The dress is one colour and two textures. The bodice is a boned corset in matte crepe, seamed into panels and cut away at the waist in two small windows between the bust and the hip band. The shoulders are the point: two fans of sunray pleats that stand off the arm like shells. Below the waist the chiffon is wrapped and draped to a high-low hem, knee-length in front, calf-length behind.

This is a dress for a launch or a late dinner in warm weather, not for a chair. It needs nothing else: a pointed heel in black, hair tucked behind the shoulders so the pleats have the room, hands free. Spring and summer, strong daylight or none at all.

I wore it to an empty factory. The pleats were the only thing in the building that had been ironed.