THE STORY BEHIND THE CREATION OF THE CHANTAL MALLETT 'WIRE WORK' MASK DESIGNS   I fell in love with the idea of masks as an accessory when I first went to Venice ~ the 18th century has always been an inspirational historical period to me & modern day Venice is all about celebrating the 18th century! Stunning architecture, dreamy canals, romantic bridges, elegant vistas, antique shops, stores selling hand bound books & hand made paper, beautiful fabric furnishings, reproductions of rich & innovative silks originally created by Fortuni, Murano glass chandeliers & dozens of boutiques selling colourful papier mache masks. I spent days trailing around mask shops choosing just the right one to buy & had a ball trying them on! It was my first trip to Venice, I had seen Venice in photographs, travel programs & in films yet had never really imagined how wonderful it would be or how at home I would feel in this city ~ not until I saw Venice in the flesh had it even occurred to me how in keeping my design style was with this city & how it would draw me back time & time again. Strangely, for a person that would spend every waking moment floating around the little streets of this amazing place if she could, I found my first four days of Venice too much & though I had loved everything I had seen, I flew home suffering an extreme case of sensory overload ~ four days was toooooooooo long, my feet hurt & my head hurt from the horrible bout of flu Venice had given me within hours of my arrival ~ I just wanted to go home :( To read about 18th Century Venice, the masks, the Carnivale, the gambling, the flirting, Casanova, click here. Venice, however creeps under your skin (I miss Venice when I'm not there) & within the year I was back enjoying Carnivale wearing the masks I had been inspired to create on my first visit. When I had returned home, crawled into my own bed & got rid of my flu, I began to reflect on my trip & discovered Venice had really fired up my creative juices. I considered the masks I had bought & wondered if I could create a finer, delicate face mask in the style of my head-dresses by using my wire work technique (with the idea being that the mask would enhance a beautiful face rather than hide it). I really didn't think I would be able to make a version that could be moulded to the contours of the face & hold it's shape & I didn't want to make something that couldn't stand up to being worn or was a flat shape wired to a stick (I have seen a mask, inspired by my Mask II which was created as a flat shape with huge eye holes & was fitted onto a stick & I was right, it looks awful!). My first piece was the design marked  Mask III- I put a lot of thought into making it in a way that would build strength into the design especially in areas that required a lot of shaping & Mask III is probably my most filled in Mask, as I was being cautious. Even I was very surprised at how well it turned out & even more surprised that I have been able to refine the design to more open, delicate versions that still work. When I look at the masks I bought from Venice in comparison, I still love them but cannot believe how heavy & different they look! Of course if you advertise & publicise any new idea, your work inevitably leads to head-dress makers making 'inspired by' versions or hybrids of my designs but what I have always prided myself on is making beautiful things that are also practical - they must fit & they must stand up to the job & other makers do not seem to have grasped that the engineering behind the design has to be right & that the way it is constructed is part of what makes it look beautiful. All my masks are hand made & though they look very delicate they are quite robust & comfortable as they are shaped properly to fit the contours of a face ~ they are also very good for making noses look nicer & hiding wrinkles - as my 54 (at the time) year old Mother pointed out to me when she wore one of my designs to Venice for Carnivale a few years ago ;) You've never seen a daughter drag a Mother away to the safety of a cafe quicker than the night my Mother & I walked into St Marks Square in full make-up, hair piled high & dressed with flowers & feathers, wearing my masks & other jewellery ~ we looked good! Not only did we experience an awful lot of male attention & a lot of "Mucha Bella" but within minutes a Father & Son were making a bee line for us! My Mother thought it was great fun but really! Anyway, safer & less embarrassing fun was had in Cafe Florians where we ended up spending the evening hanging out with two members of a film crew (sound & camera men) that were working on a Mike Figgis film over on the Lido ~ we could have been extras but had to go home darlings! Carnivale:   My Mother at a Venetian Party.     Masks look great but don't gossip with an American in a veil - these two had the memories of goldfish (though alcohol was involved too). They did this twice! Funny ~ but don't abuse the mask!   No mask but here I am at Carnivale,  embracing the 'Sophisticated Goth' in me + you would of wondered where I was in this line up. (I'm more of a behind the camera type). masks, face masks, venetian inspired masks, masquarade masks, masquarade balls, masquarade parties, alternative masks, masks in the UK, mask makers in the UK, mask maker, delicate wire work masks, delicate gold masks, delicate silver masks, delicate filigree masks, masks on ribbons, masks on a stick, Tiepolo Ball masks, Tiepolo Ballo maschere, carnival masks, maschere carnevale, venetian carnival masks, Carnevale di Venezia maschere, maschereri, I'm sure by now, you have realised just how beautiful these masks can make a woman look & feel ~ when you wear one of my masks,  you certainly turn heads. I keep seeing these wonderful ball scenes like the one in Phantom of the Opera & see all the Venetian masks & wish the costume departments had thrown their net a bit further a field, as my masks would have looked stunning in a film like that!  ~ Costume departments take note please ~ The irony is that these masks look better than any masks you will have seen on the big screen but then that in itself it reason enough for owning one, yet only a handful of woman have ever experienced how lovely it is to wear one. As with so many of those wonderful discoveries we make ~ a designer in a tiny boutique somewhere making fabulous shoes, unusual bags, etc., what makes these masks so desirable is how unique each piece is & how few Chantal Mallett pieces will ever be in circulation.

THE STORY BEHIND THE CREATION OF THE CHANTAL MALLETT 'WIRE WORK' CHOKERS & WRIST CUFF DESIGNS   THROAT CORSET: The creation of my throat corset design was a result of a challenge I set myself. Friends who had seen my new mask designs were encouraging me to make necklaces / chokers but I did not want to string beads together & create traditional neck pieces & besides there were plenty of gorgeous pieces already available in the market place & stringing beads did not present a challenge. After mulling the idea of a choker over for a while I decided to come up with a design that would be the perfect choker for me & the perfect signature piece for my accessory collection. I based the design on the following factors: I like my chokers very ornate & very deep. I love things that come right up around the neck & under the chin to frame the face, like polonecks & high fur collars. I liked the way Audrey Hepburn looked in the ball scene in My Fair lady & the neck on the pink dress she wore in the closing scene. I have always liked the idea of the Elizabethan ruffs. I love 'wicked queen' collars like in Disney's Snow White.  I also have always likes the high necks & look of Edwardian women's clothing. I like the winged collars on men's dress shirts. I wanted this signature piece to be a marriage of my bridal gown work & accessory work, as corsets were my signature within the bridal wear field, it seemed only right to use a corset structure for the choker design & a corset seemed to encapsulate all my ideas perfectly. I also drew inspiration from my Antennae Combs design & Venetian mask III & created a piece that would match my sample's colour ways & the Swarovski crystal embellishments:     The resulting piece, which you can see by clicking here , was made up of spines of wire arranged in a similar way to corset boning, shaped to the neck & splaying out onto the shoulders & filled in with finer wire & crystals. In keeping with the corset theme, the throat corset laces up the throat to close. This is a decorative piece so unlike corsets, the idea is not to 'tight lace' & the piece was made to be worn comfortably.   CORSET CUFF: The Corset Cuff design was a natural progression of the throat corset & was made to complement a head-dress for an accessory client. I have since also made a choker for an accessory client based on the cuff design.

COPYRIGHT: All the accessories are copyrighted to Chantal Mallett & are original designs ~ my accessory designs have always been about new ideas, new ways of creating things & innovation & the masks, crowns, tiaras, head-dresses, throat corset, choker, corset cuff, etc. are all completely original design concepts & were designed & made by myself first ~ they are my intellectual property ~ similar designs from other makers will therefor be 'inspired by', 'hybrids of' or copies of my works.