So my lovely steel-boned corset from Orchard Corset arrived today, and I may have been squealing like a 6-year-old because, while I intend to cover it in a temporary skin of hologrammatic turquoise fish scales for costume purposes, it wound up going damn well with my costume color scheme as is. According to the website it’s grey, but it looks dark teal when put next to the costume fabrics, which is perfect for my needs. I was going to leave it in the scale skin for future costume events, but it’s just so pretty I may take it off so that I can wear it to other things.

Then again, I may not have to. Did I mention that corsets happen to be one of Ramón’s fetishes? When he found out he was going to have to lace me up daily so that the corset would be seasoned before RT2016, his eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. If I play my cards right, I may get some more of these in different colors over the coming months, tra la.

So anyway, we put it on. First off, I was absolutely delighted that it did indeed fit my heroically sized frame and that the modesty panel in back covered everything but an inch-wide gap. I’m not worried about that since it will be closed once the corset is properly seasoned.

(An aside — seasoning, or breaking in, a new steel bone corset is important because it allows the corset time to adjust to the shape of your body, reducing the chances of popped stitches or warped busks, and it also allows your body to adjust to the idea of compression. Satin corsets like these should be worn for a few hours each day for a week, while cotton or brocade corsets can take two weeks. For more information on seasoning, here’s a useful video from Orchard Corset.)

Secondly, I discovered that I need to pull this down just a tad because the waist is sitting a little high, which shoves my boobs up right under my chin. That being said, I was extremely impressed at how comfortable it was to wear. I could breathe, I wasn’t being uncomfortably pinched anywhere, and man did my posture improve. Also, I got one hell of a kiss from Ramón after he finished lacing me up.

Thirdly, I need to make sure I wipe all the dust off my mirrors before taking future pictures. That’s a NASA t-shirt under the corset, by the way. Gotta make sure my geek cred is current.