White waterfall beaded G-String

This incredible waterfall style hand beaded Burlesque G string was handmade by Lorraine Gail Smith as well as the beautiful hand sewn bra. I just wanted to give you some nice detail shots of this G string. Do any of you sew, Hand sew?

If so, do you understand the amount of detail work that went into this beautiful set.

Years ago, I gifted the bra and G string to a couple of my friends in the Burlesque industry. Now, you must understand that I gifted these pieces before I understood the history of them, I didn’t know who the set belonged to, I didn’t understand the gravity of keeping all of it together because I didn’t know who Lorraine Gail Smith was. After years of research and finding more information about her, realizing that all of these pieces were not only worn by her but, hand sewn by her as well , I reached out to both of my friends and requested a trade out. Both of them were keen to keep the collection together and support me in finding her story so they both sent these pieces back to me to put back in the museum.

I no longer gift vintage burlesque items unless I have exhausted all my resources and can find no history at all on them. At that time I never really saw myself opening a museum per se, I really just wanted to understand how these costumes came together and gain inspiration for costume ideas for myself. After a while, my collection grew bigger and bigger and in time I realized it was going to be necessary to put together some type of museum so that there would be checks and balances in place to keep all of these pieces protected from the elements and possibly slow down the aging process a little bit.

Today, all of my burlesque costumes new and old are kept with me in The performance theater within my home. Each of these costumes are hung in a way that won’t damage the costume, stored in garment bags and regularly rotated to be cared for, archived and documented, put back in the garment bags, hung carefully and returned to the closet from which they came.

I find that if I store all of my Burlesque items in boxes, it’s harder for me to find them, for some reason if they’re out of sight, they’re out of mind. And I don’t like that. I feel like each of these costumes want to be regularly touched, documented and cared for. Maybe I personalize these costumes too much but I feel like each one of them comes with a spirit, I like to keep those spirits happy.

There are a few pieces that I have on display in my museum currently but those also get rotated out to make sure that they don’t spend too much time in the tropical elements here.

Do you collect anything that requires a great amount of care and maintenance?

(I apologize, there is something wrong with my app and I cannot upload the detail photos on this post for some reason. I’ve turned my phone off and on, reinstall the app, etc. but for some reason I cannot upload anymore photos… I guess I’ll have to try to upload the detail photos on a second post. Technology is frustrating sometimes)