How we came to lace the bold.

Frisky & Corset began, as most things worth wearing do, in someone else's wardrobe. Our founder — a former opera costumier with strong feelings about ribbon — was asked at a party to repair a friend's split silk bodice. By morning she had not only repaired it but rebuilt it from the bone up, in a different colour, with new grommets and an unexpected bow at the small of the back.

The friend wore it to a gallery opening. The next week eleven women asked where she'd had it made. Three were actresses. One was a duchess in exile.

Today we run a workshop of seven — two cutters, three stitchers, one finisher, and a man named Henri who has sourced our coutil for sixteen years and has never quite explained how. We do not produce more than a dozen of any silhouette. We never put a piece into a machine that wasn't built before 1962. We answer correspondence with thought and ink.

If we sound preposterous: thank you. We are. That is largely the point.