This was the second part of the project 2 Faces of Winter, and whereas the first one, Desolation, was all about the bleakness of the season, this one, Polaris, was to be all about the sparkle of the freshly fallen snow, quiet, fluffy and cold, reflected either in the weak sunshine, or, better still, in the cold moonlight on a starry night. Link to my inspiration board here
I had a skirt , all in feathers, and a bridal coat from our Winter Bride collection lat year – but needed a proper wintery corset and headdress to go with them.
Once the base was all ready ( white cotton sateen, internal boning, bound in silver), it was time to start on the decoration…
experimenting with different textures
snowflakes galore!
layering the bling…
done!
flossing detail
The headdress was the next step – and since the coat looks a bit Russian I decided to go for the traditional Russian headdress called kokoshnik tiara.
First – the base, experimenting with the shape
when I was happy with the shape, i stabilized it, added attachment points and covered everything in white linen first, then silk. The base was trimmed with marabou feathers, and silvery white ferns were arranged on top. then just added bling, and the strings of pearls…
Everything was ready, but we had a slight problem… no snow in England. none forecast either for the next few weeks, and it was already the end of January… If we wanted snow we either had to think outside the box – or travel.
Fortunately my parents live in Oslo – and snow is there aplenty. after a quick look at budget airlines and timing, we were booked on the flight to Norway. A short trip, 2 days, should be enough to do a shoot, catch up with my folks and maybe do some skiing!
We arrived on Saturday afternoon and had a brief wait for my parents who were out at the language school, studying Norwegian. we used it constructively – bought gloves, hat, and started making a sledge out of the snow. in the afternoon we just managed to catch enough light to shoot one part of the Polaris the results below…
and the sledge! :-)
for those of you wondering what footwear was used, wonder no longer….
the answer is – reasonable footwear. :-)
The next morning brought a change of weather – thaw:-( it was raining a bit and all the snow was gone from the trees, but there was still enough to snatch some proper pictures in the daylight.
Norwegian daylight is sort of more of a UK dusk…
And the job done, we could relax. Alas, due to the weather conditions, no skiing for us – but fortunately sledges were still game! We hired sledges at the top of one of the mountains – the route winds down for about 2.5km and ends at a train station. Very convenient, as the train carries you all the way up – to the start of the sleigh route! it was great fun despite the drizzle and dense fog:-) a few pics below:-)
After a few hours of sledging fun, wet and achy ( the route has a lot of moguls throwing your sledges into the air – and sometimes you land ok on the sledges, sometimes you don’t… impressive bruises were gained thus…) we got warm and soothed our pains with copious amounts of tea and cake in the local restaurant:-)
the restaurant… very cool
even cooler…
the interior design did not disappoint…
neither did the cake…
Next morning it was time to get back home – tired, bruised, but happy with the pictures! 
Many thanks to my parents for putting us up for the weekend:-)
Hope you enjoyed them too – all costume pictures by Pitcheresque Imagery, clothes by Prior Attire.
Filed under: corsetry, Dressmaking, fantasy, photoshoots, projects Tagged: corset, Ice queen, Oslo, photography project, Russian bride, sledge, snow queen, snowflake corset, sparkling corset, Winter, winter queen 
