A sneak peek at what I've been doing. (Shown with Statuesque boots and Frostbite Costume.) Although, the news is not good.
I tried to hide the buttons on the mesh, which worked great on the mesh when I set it on the ground in-world. I thought it looked great. Then, I put the corset on and... uh, oh! You can't just make the buttons transparent. Above, you can see what it looks like with the buttons (left) and when I made them invisible (right). I also applied the texture I wanted to use to the one on the right, so you can see (almost) what it
should look like.
What's going on here: Second Life likes to make sure that if you make something invisible, it stays that way, which means, if part of your avatar is invisible, and you put something transparent in front of you, you can see all the way through the object and your avatar. Interesting if you want to be invisible or are trying to get prim shoes to cover up ugly system feet, but very annoying when trying to hide part of a mesh you're wearing.