I’ve been asked a few questions about Mr Pearl and who he is. I wrote a blog post a while ago about Mr Pearl, but I thought I’d quickly ‘freshen up’ the info as people wanted to know more about him as a person (he’s a curious man to make a huge understatement!). Mr Pearl is a professional corset maker born in Brazil with an English father and a Dutch mother. He moved to London but now resides in Paris so he has experienced a wealth of different cultures.
Mr Pearl’s real name is ‘Mark Pullin’ and he got his first taste of corsetry from his grandmother, whom he lived with from a young age. She used to let him help lace her up in her long line salmon pink corsets. Mr Pearl started corset training himself in his early 30’s and now has an 18 inch waist. This is the part I get most questions about – yes it’s real, no he’s not been photoshopped. He wears his corset 23/7 and gradually got smaller and smaller over several years. This is corset training people 🙂
Mr Pearl taken by Ali Mahdavi, 1999
But his looks aside, there’s one thing and one thing only that makes Mr Pearl infamous in the fashion world, and that is his corsets!
Mr Pearl works for some of the largest names in fashion, from new designers like McQueen to timeless names such as Jean Paul Gautier. You can immediately see why when you examine his work. Here is a classic example of his ‘poetry in fabric’ –
Dita Von Teese wearing one of Mr Pearl’s corsets. This one laces up from the crotch, up the back and through an attached hood.
