This is it! The final piece of the costume! We’re nearly
there (and not a moment too soon).
The observant might notice that there was no corset in my
original costume sketch. To be truthful, that’s because corsets scare me. Not the
wearing – I’ve watched enough Costube to understand that a well-fit, moderately
laced corset shouldn’t be painful – but the making. This is a complicated
garment with lots of curves, and not a lot of room for error. When I planned
this costume, I didn’t think I was going to be ready to make one by the
deadline.
I still don’t think I’m ready, but I went ahead anyway! Doing
is the best way to learn, isn’t it?
The first challenge was finding a pattern to start with,
because there was no way I was going to draft one from scratch. We should at least
start this process with someone who knew what they were doing! I looked around
at different styles of mid-late Victorian corsets and found myself drawn to a
particular style of corded corset. These had very few bones: most of the
support came from densely corded panels. I did a little digging and found a
free Foundations Revealed article (though it seems to have since been removed)
examining a corded corset from the 1880s, including a transcribed pattern! I
loved the way this corset looked, and while it was a bit small waist-wise for
me, the presumed height of the original wearer was close to mine. And I figured
that adjusting the width would be easier than adjusting height.
(As it turns out, both are hard. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)
I made two mockups, each with different methods for fitting
the pattern to me. For the first, I simply widened each panel by a fixed amount
until it fit my hips. The problem, though, was that the bust and hips were way
too big, even if I were to pad my figure out. It was downright cartoonish. I
tried to size down the bust/hips, but ended up ruining all the nice curves of
the panels. Back to the drawing board, then.
For the second mockup, I tried to grade the pieces to fit
the major three measurements: bust, waist, and hips. I got lazy this time and
didn’t actually cord the panels, opting instead to stiffen some scrap
upholstery fabric just to get an idea of the shape.
It was also at this point that I realized something. I was
making a corset for a (fictional) fairy, and fairies are hurt or repelled my iron
in many stories. And corset busks are made of iron-containing steel.
Realistically, the Dream Fairy wouldn’t be able to wear the
corset as I was making it.
The steel busk doesn’t touch the skin while being worn, but
it would still present a problem when taking the garment on and off. And I imagine
the Dream Fairy sewed her own clothes, in which case she wouldn’t have been
able to insert the busk in the first place. I needed another solution.
All the antique corsets I’ve seen have had a busk, but
plenty of modern corsets don’t. Sometimes they lace up the front. Sometimes
they don’t have a front opening at all. Neither option is particularly accurate
to the time period (as far as my very amateur knowledge goes), but hey, I’m
making a costume for a fictional person belonging to a fictional species. I can
afford not to be perfectly accurate. I liked the clean look of corsets sewn up
the front, so I simply replaced the busk with a pair of bones in the second
mockup.
…yeah I may have taken half of it apart before I remembered
to snap a picture. But this one fit a lot
better. It wasn’t as dramatic in silhouette as I wanted, but I was fast running
out of time and needed to move on.
The stiffened upholstery fabric worked surprisingly well as
a strength layer. I’m not going to claim it was as good as real coutil (it’s
not), but it wasn’t bad. Because of how long it took to finish the mockups (and
decide that yes, I really was going to go through with this), I was worried
that I wouldn’t be able to buy coutil online in time to actually make my
corset, so I made the executive decision to continue upcycling upholstery
fabric in my final project. Isn’t that what a fairy would do, after all? She wouldn’t
be able to go to the store and buy the perfect fabric, she’d use what she could
find.
Anyway, back to the actual making of the thing. I cut panels,
sewed coding channels, and inserted cords (which was not easy on the hands, let
me tell you!) The cords are actually just some random cotton yarn from my
stash. They show through the sheer outer fabric just a little, which surprised
me, but I have to say I like the way it draws the eye to the curves of the
corded panels.
Next, I sewed together the panels and felled the seams.
Eyelets were another brief point of contention. If I was
forgoing the busk because it was steel, I couldn’t very well use steel eyelets.
Brass I could justify, but the color wouldn’t work with the red-green-silver
palette I had going. Fortunately, sewn eyelets are very much a thing. They
might be a little old-fashioned for this style of corset (I’m not sure), but at
this point we’re only vaguely gesturing towards historical accuracy so I didn’t
care. Sewn eyelets it was.
What else is there to do? Oh right, boning. There are only
three pairs of bones in this entire corset: two in the back supporting the
eyelets, and one in the front replacing the busk. Historically these were made
of whalebone (or steel, but obviously we’re not going that route), but nowadays
we prefer to protect the whales, and use synthetic whalebone instead.
Admittedly, I didn’t have any synthetic whalebone. I didn’t
even have any big zip-ties. But I did have some plastic folders!
Should I call this my trash corset? It’s made of a lot of
stuff that would have wound up in the garbage otherwise. I cut a folder into
strips and sandwiched a few together for a sturdier “bone”.
Maybe it’s my MacGyver corset instead. I didn’t actually use
any duct tape or bobby pins, but I got close. Should I try to make a corset out
of duct tape and bobby pins? Would that even work?
…I was in the middle of something else. Wacky hijinks can
wait.
Step number I’ve-lost-count was to insert the bones into
their respective channels and bind off the top and bottom edges, finally hiding
all the raw edges in the garment. I used some red quilting cotton for the
binding, and because I didn’t have a long enough piece to go along the whole
edge, I pieced together two different patterns and made a design out of it. I
think that bit worked rather nicely.
Now all the sewing’s done, and the fun part begins. Whenever
you have boning, you need to do something to secure the ends of the bones so
they don’t wear through the binding. Often, this was also an opportunity to add
a bit of decoration to the corset. Yes, I’m talking about flossing! I found
photos on the corset-making livejournal showing a flossing sampler, which was all the
inspiration I needed. I did some functional flossing on the bones, of course,
but I also had fun flossing the corded panels. These don’t serve a structural
purpose; they just look pretty. Really pretty.
Does anyone else ever get a little nervous when using
abstract designs? I’m always worried that I’ll accidentally copy a design with
a symbolic meaning that I have no knowledge of. I hope these come off as
regular little floral motifs.
By now the corset is perfectly functional, but there’s still
something missing. What could it be…
Ah yes. There’s no lace. That won’t do.
I dove once again into my favorite archive.org resources and
found yet another lovely bit of crocheted lace, this time from Crochet series No. 1-5 (link here). Crocheted lace works up much faster than any other type of lace I’ve yet
to try, so it wasn’t long before I was blocking, pinning, and sewing it onto
the form. I made a (very long) four-stranded round braid to act as the lacing,
gave everything one last good press, and voila! A real-life corset!
Well, it’s certainly a corset. I won’t say I’m entirely
pleased with it. Despite my attempts at careful measuring, it’s a bit too big on
me (would’ve been better if it was too small, but alas). I don’t think the
silhouette is quite right for the era. There are some fit issues, especially in
the back, that I was never able to get rid of.
But then, there are positives too. It fits me well enough to
be comfortable and supportive. My experiment removing the busk worked pretty
well. The embroidery and lace are pretty. For my first corset, and in fact my
first fitted garment ever, I’d say it’s a good effort.
I won’t lie, I’m nervous to enter this into a competition. I
don’t like to be judged on work that is so imperfect, and I know the judges
will find even more wrong than I can see right now. But sharing and allowing
for that vulnerability is how we grow. To do anything else is stagnation for
the sake of security.
As scared as I am, I’m going to show this. I accept its
flaws, but I’m proud of the things I did well. And next time, I’ll do even
better.