tempered breath

Year:      2026

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Event: World of WearableArt Bizarre Bra Section Finalist

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Inspiration:

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Delicate and surprisingly soft stainless steel wing shapes sweep up and over the breasts, supported by a light but solid framework. The metal material is delicately coloured by flame-painting, or tempering - the ancient process of heat-treating metal. Tempering is also a term describing the action of limiting or controlling, of making something less extreme. This concept can be referenced in both a very physical way towards breasts themselves, harnessed, controlled, and re-shaped in bras, or towards women themselves within society.
Insect wings have been a constant in my work and were a natural design choice to turn to when the work was largely material driven.
 

Construction:

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Shapes were cut from stainless steel mesh and the edges hand rolled, before colouring with a butane torch. Known more as flame-painting in the arts, in industry it is a by-product of the ancient process of heat-treating, or tempering, metal. This is usually done to reduce the brittleness and hardness of metal. The various colours produced indicate the temperature it was heated to.
Introduced to this technique several years ago, I had long been wanting to explore it further, and this was an opportunity to do so. The airy nature of the material lent itself to the concept of wings, and the delicacy of these demanded a similar support. To keep it minimal but strong enough to support the desired shape, I chose to learn to solder wire over a mannequin, before binding it in metallic gold lycra ribbon. Blue acrylic paint was lightly brushed over it to tone it down to better match the mesh.
For some delicate light-catching sparkle, crystals were threaded onto earring-rings and sewn along the exposed back structure.

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Materials & Techniques:              

 

Flame-painted stainless steel mesh, metallic lycra ribbon, acrylic paint, crystals,