New Photo Set; "Heatwave"

One of the many reasons I love creative modelling is the ability to imply a look without the subject being necessarily real, as an illusion.
Derek's most recent lighting upgrades included a set of color gel sheets &u we really wanted to play around with the colours in this set. Encouraging the oncoming summer weather, we set the temperatures to hot with this heatwave theme! Using red gels Derek set the room aflame with tones of red & orange that perfectly matched my lingerie.

New photo set: Purple woods/Spring light test!

My good friend & local photographer Derek recently invested in some new equipment which he was very eager to experiment with.


Due to our overlapping & busy schedules we weren't able to get together to do a lot of the creative shoots we've been planning. Instead we drove off during a last minute trip to Enniskillen General store on Good Friday, with a giant cotton candy ice cream in hand, to get some sunny test shots. Here are the results!


 

You can tell that Cotton Candy is my favourite!

DIY Burlesque; How I made my sparkle spangled bodysuit! ✨

I had this idea a few years ago for an act entitled "Franny's panties", a parody of children's show "Franny's feet" (which I will be debuting this Sunday April 2nd at Sinful Sunday's at Cherry Colas). The concept of the act, which I will not elaborate on just yet, requires me to appear completely nude, even without underthings.

  Inspired by costumes worn by figure skaters & gymnasts, I thought the best way to achieve a smooth, seamlessly nude look was to make a body stocking to create the illusion.  I bought a porcelain mesh fabric bodysuit (Info on this at the bottom, you can generally find them at any modern retail store right now). In order to prepare the garment for stage, I removed all visible tags. 

The embellishment on this piece due to it's intended purpose was obviously required to be placed in strategic places. This is the next step I took; put it on. Acknowledge where the most coverage is needed & make markings with a fabric pen or wax pencil.

Perfect! Now you have guidelines to begin sparkling up this bad gal. The glue I use is a fabric embellishment specific type of E6000(info on this also at the bottom) it does take a bit to dry & because the fabric is mesh, the glue will seep right through. While stoning this costume I placed glass candle covers between the fabric so once the glue was dry the stones would just pull off glued to the garment. Like so;

I used peach jelly ab stones to match the porcelain fabric but you can use any type you like!

 

For this piece I used the 'bunch & fan out' technique a lot of performers use for their costumes. Basically you bunch the rhinestones up in one place & gradually fan them out upwards (or sometimes otherwise depending on the piece). 

 

(First night out!! Photo by Dylan Weller. dylanweller.com) Use your discretion, be creative & always sparkle!! XoXo! ✨💖 Bodysuit: urbanplanet.com $16.99 Glue: "E6000 - Frabri-fuse extreme stretch" michaels.com $14.99 Rhinestones: 2000 for $0.99, random sellers on eBay.ca

"Most little birdies will fly away but the Tiki Room birds are here everyday."

It's been just about a week since our last show at the Shameful Tiki Room (at least for now) & it's only now starting to finally set in. It didn't seem real at first, maybe because the show had become such a delightful routine for me. I wasn't quite sure why, or why I didn't seem upset or indifferent about it at all.

 Usually the end is a very terrifying concept, especially in regards to scenarios that bring you joy. Especially for me, along with drastic change, it tends to be one of my biggest fears.  Although for some reason I felt completely natural about South Seas Tease coming to a close, as if it had been part of the plan all along.

 The night sure did go out with a bang, Tanya Cheex, Aviva the Mirage & I gave our all on the Shameful Tiki stage (quite literally), & the crowd was one of the largest & involved audiences we've seen in the short year-ish that our little Monday night bi-weekly (& then weekly!) go-go (& then burlesque!) girly show was running.

  Our intention was to give you an escape & if that's what you got, thank you for sharing it with us!! What did we get from the whole experience? A hell of a lot of fun, laughs, smiles, rum soaked cherries, opportunities, spot-light, a few puffs of exotic fog & a slice of cake! 

 I now know why I wasn't afraid of the end, because the end is just the beginning again! 

Roses are red..

I haven't done a proper shoot in a long time, & with the craziness that was the end of 2016 I didn't get a chance to photograph a lot of the concepts I've wanted to. My friend Derek & I usually just shoot whatever idea pops into our heads & there has been a serious backlog since Halloween!! We figured what better way to kick start 2017 & test out his new camera than to put together a Valentine's Day photo set, so here it is!  All the lingerie I'm wearing is vintage from various thrift adventures & we used Derek's living room for the location. 

New Year, new acts, new costumes!

Usually when I put my acts together, it starts with a simple image of what I'd like the final product to look like on-stage. From there I start picking apart & putting together the pieces to make the performance reflect what I originally created in my mind.

Sometimes it starts with inspiration from one particular source but I find when a really great act comes together I gather my inspiration from many places or in this case, people! The inspiration will comes from absolutely everywhere - even places I had no idea I'd gather it from.

When I plan out my acts I start first with the costume/concept, then the music & choreography comes next. But with my newest act which I debuted on New Years 2016, 'The Star Stripper', I started backwards. I found an old striptease classic by Sonny Lester and his orchestra that hadn't been used too much & from there the moves & the strip just fell together perfectly. The melody made for a natural bump & grind tease. So another classic act it would be!

Once I had the performance aspect down, I started to think about what the music said to me. The piece greatly reminded me of the many burlesque legends from the golden age & since my main goal in burlesque is to recreate a historically accurate depiction of this form of entertainment, I decided the act would be a tribute to the headliners of days past. Now that the whole idea was almost complete, the only piece left to create was the costume.

Most classic burlesque acts that you'd see involve an extravagant gown, many layers of beautifully designed lingerie, perhaps a panel skirt or something similar & then of course, your pasties and g-string. Of course this would be the path to go down, but I also wanted to include something a little more exciting. My friend Derek had gifted me a set of string LED lights that attached to a battery pack & I immediately thought "How cool would this look as part of a costume." A light up costume.


I've seen them on stage before & the impression given is astounding. (Look up performers such as Arabella Allure & Vicki Butterfly).  Playing by the rules I went out and bought myself a gorgeous but simple grey crushed velvet dress & 4 metres of light grey tulle fabric to situate into the gown itself. This is where I would add the fairy lights, the battery pack of which I placed inside the seam of the dress, allowing me to turn the lights off & on at will. I devised most of my inspiration for the costume from the ladies mentioned above & my fellow South Seas Tease gal, Fionna Flauntit, who performs a firefly act with an LED headdress, pasties & panty. The costume wasn't finished by the time it went on stage, but was received very well! I'll be doing updates on it in the next few months.

XoXo Frannypanties

New Photo Set: "Golden Lady" (First set of 2016!)

I've done a number of pin-up shoots in the past, even some very successful ones, but I've decided to expand this year & shoot a lot more, & collaborate with a lot more friends on creative works. As well as spending more time on my own creative projects.

This first set was shot by local photographer & good friend of mine, Derek Cutting (firemate.ca). We'd been throwing around the idea to do a pin-up style shoot together for some time, since first working together last June..

Photo by: Derek Cutting Wardrobe: Violet Love

We finally decided to get together this past Thursday night to get some shots of the 'Soleil Sucré' lingerie my Mom gifted me from Paris for my 20th birthday. All the photos were shot in Derek's living-room with the help of some genius props, articulate furniture placement & skillful light play. Here are the results...

I was eagerly anticipating how these photos would turn out, & I'm excited to see the results! I look forward to shooting with Derek a lot more in 2016. As I mentioned before, my lingerie is from Soleil Sucré (soleilsucre.com). For my makeup I'm wearing Yves Rocher liner in Black (16$ @ yvesrocher.ca), Bourjois Paris blush in Rose D'or (20$ @ bourjois.ca), Sephora colorful glitter shadow in Hollywood's calling (16$ @ sephora.com), CG shadow in French Vanilla (no more than 6$ at any department store) & Maybeline Greatlash mascara in Blackest black (no more than 8$ at any department store).

That's about it for now, follow my social media accounts for more updates & bts goodies!!

Xo Xo