For the HSF Challenge 3: Under It All, back in february, I decided to start the foundation on my planed 1550s dress (which I still haven’t gotten around to make). So I decided to make a corse…

A reproduction 1870’s corset

Explore prroberts' 26 photos on Flickr!

This entry will hopefully explain different ways of corset lacing and tips for you to get the best cinch and extend the life of your corset. First of all, let's talk about laces. The laces of a corset can be double-faced satin ribbon or flat cotton laces as a standard. The choice mainly depends on aesthetics and the maker's preference, as they both are commonly strong and durable. You can see the difference in between these kinds of laces on the image above. The green Electra Designs corset on the left features satin ribbon laces, while the 19th century blue corset in the middle is laced with flat cotton cord and the Madame Sher pink corset on the right features a rat tail lacing. The kind of laces shall not be confused with the style of lacing. The style might also depend on the maker's preferences, but laces can be easily changed by the wearer to meet his/her needs. Despite of this, historical corsetry should be laced according to its era. A pair of 17th century stays won't be laced the same way as a victorian/edwardian corset, for instance. Anyway, the lacing styles we're now discussing are the ones used for actual corsetry. 1st. One of the most commonly used styles of lacing is clearly explained in Evening Arwen's webpage. The style this link will direct you to is the classic victorian way of lacing, for wich you start lacing at the top edge of the back panels and place bunny ears (loops) at the waist area (these loops will help the wearer lace his/herself into the corset by pulling them, and will easily put the most pressure on the waist area for a perfect cinch). 2nd. Another common lacing type is the one explained by Electra Designs. This one also starts at the top and places loops or bunny ears on the waist area, though those loops invert the laces creating an extra cross. These inverted bunny ears actually help the lacing not to slide while cinching and are extra secure. 3rd. The last type we'll see is also very common, but I personally think is the less appropiate for corsetry. This corset by Bibian Blue shows this kind of lacing that starts either at the top or the bottom (the example is started at the bottom and ties the edges at the top). There are no bunny ears on the waist area and the ribbons look more like a shoe. I would recommend lacings 1 or 2, as the bunny ears help pulling the waist in which is actually the corseting aim. Now we know a bit more about laces and lacing, how do we put our corset on? 1- First of all, make sure your laces are loose enough to wrap yourself with the garment without any pulling or pressure. This will prevent the front closure from damage (it doesn't matter if it's a zip, a busk, swing hooks... If the front closure is also a lacing system, you may need to loosen this up as well). When your corset features no front closure at all, back laces should still be loose enough to get inside (as you would put on a top or T-shirt); if laces are too short to get in, then you'll need to undo part of the lacing so you get comfortably in. Then, relace your corset before starting the next step. After wraping the corset around, close the front. If it's a busk, make sure you start closing the second or third hook first to avoid extra pressure on the piece, and then fasten up the other hooks. 2- You've got your corset loose around your body: now it's time to pull the laces. You can make this on your own (a mirror will help) or get it done by somebody else. In any case, the way of doing it is pretty much the same. Start by pulling the bunny ears at your waist as long as the surrounding laces tighten a bit. Now, start pulling from the top to the middle, and then from the bottom to the middle as you would do with a shoe, making sure the extra ribbon goes to the middle section increasing the lenght of the bunny ears. Repeat this until you feel pressed by the corset, making sure you pull more or less the same way at the top and bottom so the back bones don't suffer and keep as straight as possible. The pressure must be comfortable and allow breathing normally. If you feel any pain or discomfort, loosen the laces a bit until you feel like huged and well. Warning!! Make sure you lace yourself in slow and gently, there's no need to rush. Too much pressure may cause injuries if you don't listen to your body's needs. Feel free to bend and accomodate yourself inside of the corset while lacing so you get comfortable. 3- Pull the bunny ears to get a perfect cinch around your waist and tie the rabbit ears into a simple bow. I recommend to leave the free edges slightly longer than the looped laces to ease unmaking the bow: it's not the first time I pull the bow wrong and make a knot, which is not a desireable thing to happen when you need to loosen yourself up quickly. Tip: Half an hour after you put your corset on, your body has accostumed to the cinch, so you can gently pull a little bit more. Be aware of what your body says to you: if you don't feel like pulling in anymore as you know this will be uncomfortable or even painful, stop and skip this readjustment. Comfort and patience are essential when corseting. Here's a video by Lucy/Bishonenrancher cinching herself into a "1st type lacing" (bunny ears) corset to clear these steps up, and this is another video of hers closing a "2nd type lacing" corset (inverted bunny ears). If your corset is laced in the 3rd way (no rabbit ears) then check this video by Lucy/Bishonenrancher, it will help a lot! How do we get out of our corset now? Simply follow the same steps as before but starting from the end: so you undo the bow, loosen a bit at the top and a bit at the bottom as many times as needed to keep the back bones straight, and when you're loose enough unfasten the front closure if there's one (remember, the second/third hook of the busk is the last one to be unfastened). Happy lacing!

[Note: the following has been pasted directly from livejournal, and is an amalgamation of several entries] July 4th, 2012: So I was thinking today about the zone-front gown I want to make and the 1780s/1790s stays I will need to make to go underneath it. However, I'm not allowed to start a new corset until my current one is done. So I finally-finally-finally ordered boning for my dark red 1890s corset. Of course, the fabric for the boning channels is still in Halifax, and I am in Toronto until september, but that's beside the point. I wasn't sure what type of boning to use for the channels on the side, which have the sharpest curves. The original 1890s corset mine is patterned from is boned with extra-wide flat steels, and it has a very sharp bust-waist-hips ratio. So, in theory at least, I could achieve the same sharp waist with flats. However, lots of people find that modern flat steels don't bend sharply enough to achieve the type of waist reduction this corset is made for. So I ordered more boning than I will actually need. I ordered enough boning to fill every channel with an 8mm x .4mm flat steel, which is thinner and therefore springier than a regular 6mm x .6mm flat. I also ordered spiral steels for the three channels with the sharpest bends in them (the ones at the sides and side-fronts). Spirals bend really easily and sharply, to the point where they can get permanent kinks in them if you don't store them correctly. But I don't think they're going to give me the really clean, smooth look on the outside of the corset that makes the original so beautiful. We'll see =D So here is the first part of the corset diary. First of all, here is a picture of the original corset: The pattern is from the book "Corsets: Historical Patterns and Techniques" by Jill Salen. I was inspired by these corsets: The one on the left is from the 1880s; I'm not sure who currently has it. The one on the right is a Royal Worcester corset from 1876, currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I started by taking my exact measurements and then comparing them with the measurements of the pattern. I compared the b-w-h ratio of the original corset with my own and decided how much waist reduction I wanted and what the final measurements of the corset needed to be. I altered the pattern and then made a muslin, which ended up looking like this: And then like this: As you can see, it stretched. It stretched more than 3 inches. That's because every panel is cut on the bias, and my mock-up is made of factory cotton and a thick cotton twill, which stretches a looooot more than the coutil of the final corset. But the mock-up still gave me a chance to see if there were alterations needed to the fit or the shape. I added about an inch and a half to the top at center front and gave it a slight sweetheart neckline, and added about half an inch to the bottom all the way around. Since the pieces are cut on the bias, I took a little more off the waist of the corset to achieve the waist reduction I want, which is about 5". At the same time, I gave myself a little more room through the rib cage (by a little I mean about a 1/4" per side). My final corset is made of white herringbone coutil with an outer layer of a really nice dark red cotton. These two fabrics were cut and sewn as if they are one layer. I started by stay-stitching all of the panels, since they are on the bias, and inserted the busk. I then corded the tops of the four center-front panels with a thick wool yarn of the same colour as the outer fabric. I used a beading hook to pull the yarn through the pre-sewn channels. Pre-sewing the cording channels prevents the fabric from warping - otherwise you end up with a top piece that is considerably smaller than the bottom piece because it has been zig-zagged up and down over the cording. Here are the four CF panels after cording. Also, note the backwards busk. Oops. Not sure how I did that, but it doesn't make much of a difference and it's too late to take it out now. Next, I put the corset together, flat-felling the seams to about 1/4". The boning channels will cover these seams on the outside, but I still want them to look nice on the inside, and flat-felling makes for a very strong seam. I then attached the waist tape. The seams that hold the waist tape down will be covered by the bone casings. Here is the inside of the corset before the waist tape was sewn down: With the waist tape sewn down: Here's the outside: And here's a close-up of the cording at the top: There are actually lacing grommets in it now, too, but I haven't taken any photos of it since I put them in. They're silver, and grommety, and 1" apart. I'm sure you can imagine them. ;) So there it is! Can't wait to finish it and start flossing and embroidering it! May 6, 2013, after losing weight and opening the whole thing up again for alterations: Put grommets in today, so the main parts of the alteration are finished =D Yay! Now I just have to re-bind the edges and re-floss the channels. Took some photos in the costume studio. July 27, 2013: Good shot of the flossing and cording at the top of the corset, which is unfortunately hidden by the jacket. Excuse the derpy face and my plate - added this shot because you can really see the shape of the corset. Better photos to come. February 2015: (Since I promised better photos, here's the portfolio page - a page like this for each costume can be found under the 'portfolio' tab of this blog.)

Panniers and Petticoats! Just a quick image list of all the pannier's I've found whilst doing research online. I want to be able to update this post as I slowly discover where these images come from and which museum etc, but for now it's just a 'here they are!' kind of post. If anyone knows anymore details about each of these, I'd love your imput. Thanks. Also, I've changed all the words from 'pannier' to 'petticoat'. It's funny how you stick to what you first learnt but Pannier was the French word and 'hooped petticoat' the English. I might as well get used to using the correct term now, it's only a few extra letters. Full Length Hooped Petticoat. Details: English 1750-80. LACMA describe it as 'pannier made of linen plain weave cloth and cane hoops' Also interesting features are: * Two arched canes at top. * Four complete round canes. * Hem is caned. * Finished Length is about low to mid calf. * Plain unbleached colour. * Large and Triangle shaped pockets - similar to Norah Waugh's pannier pattern. * Sounds silly to say - but a flat cane is used as the ridges to each channel are not bumped. * And again, this may sound odd, but when I zoom in closer to the image, the stitching for the top two cane arches disappears before it reaches the first complete circle cane. I mention this because construction is an important point and Norah Waugh mentions in her 'Corsets and Crinolines' that 'The top pieces vary in depth according to the size of the waist' p.46. Could this be a retractable option? * I have emailed LACMA and have asked for some more details about this item. Mid-Length Hooped Petticoat and Cage Frame Petticoat: All the website said about these two was: Panniers c.1760. Blue Pair: * Two arched canes at top. * The bottom of these two arched canes does seem to join the first circular cane rather more fiercely than the top. Similar to the zoom in on the above image. Again, could this just be the stitching come undone or a way to reduce the length of cane? * Three Complete Circular Canes deep. * Hem is caned. * Larger looking pocket openings. * Blue; I'd presume Linen. * Probably finishes around knee level. * Length of hip is similar to torso so about 14"- 16" Cage Frame: * Two Arched Canes at top. * 4 round main canes. * Probably mid calf in length. * Looks like 16 connecting straps coming from Waistband. * Wonder what the materials are - what the boning is? * Length of hip is longer than torse so I'm guessing about 18"? Cage Frame Side Hips: Can't seem to find the museum this particular pannier cage is from. The web site I got it from was: wilhelminamarquart.blogspot.com. * Not made up using a single circular cane/boning but has what is similar to 3 arched canes that join to a cf single cane or boning. * 4 straps at front and two over the arched sections. * It would be interesting to find out what the cane/boning actually is, it could be whalebone as it is relatively dark and doesn't look covered. I need to find out where it is so I can find out more about it. Short Hooped Petticoat: In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. They label this pair of panniers as: Panniers ca. 1750. British. Tan Linen and Baleen.' Interesting Features: * We know then, that it's definitely baleen that's been used for the boning. * One Arched Bone. * Two round circular bones. * Hem's been boned also. * Unable, from this view to see if it has pocket openings. * I'd also like to be able to feel this fabric and see how stiff the linen was. I'm sure it's in one of Iris Brookes books that she uses the word 'canvas' to describe the weight of fabric used for the panniers, but I can't at present find the quote so we'll hold on that one til I can find where I've read it. ** UPDATE: I have found the quote and it was in Iris Brooke's books after all. The comment comes while writing about the references later on in the century to 'hoop' and how they probably were more likely to be referring to a 'hip-hoop' rather than, and I quote: "the whole whalebone and canvas petticoat". Short Hooped Petticoat: This garment is from the V&A's collection and is described as: British made for the retailer A Schrabner in 1778. Made of Linen, cane or whalebone. Interesting Features are: * One single arched Cane/Bone. * One complete Circular Cane/Bone. * Using a 'Zoom', it's quite hard to see the stitching round the circular cane/bone. The reason I mention this is that it could be the fabric is made to drape over a cage frame - although they would've probably mentioned this in their notes. Scrap that - I've just found a closer image, and it looks more like they've made what I call a 'French Seam Channel' i.e, they've sewn a casing out of the actual garment - this is suggested by the way - if you look at the second image - the top of the arched cane is strictly gathered (which suggests stitching) while look at the way the fabric flops down over the cane, all bunched up and ruffled and not controlled by any stitching. The cane would then be pushed through this channel but only the ridge where the stitching makes the casing is it seen. Does that make sense? * Pockets - as seen in second photo. * The Top panel is made up of segments and with just a fold over channel for the ties. * There is the smallest of glimpses into the inside of the pannier and although we can definitely say it's not a cage pannier with cloth draped over - it's really hard to see anything beyond that. * Hem is NOT caned/boned. * The linen fabric itself doesn't look too heavy - the weave is fairly textured and obvious and certainly there is a strong look about it, but I wouldn'e describe it as 'canvas looking' - I'm really going to have find that quote. * On the second image there is also a piece of extra fabric sewn on - possibly an attempt to mend it - as I cannot see this on the front or anywhere else - for a minute I thought it could've been a boning channel starting. * Length of hips seem to be about 15" going with the curve of the top. I say this because it seems to be about equal to the torso of the body and my mannequin measures 15" from waist to shoulder. * Also, last thing - there are ties at the front - is it right to assume they are for shaping the petticoat? Part of the essential process in pannier making as I make one now, is to have the ties in at each level. These then get tied to their partner on the opposite side of the pannier and tightened to depending how narrow you want the panniers to be (i.e to the waist size of the customer). Is it that the cane has now so long been set that the ties aren't needed to hold the shape? Or is it that they were never needed to hold the shape, but just to pull the oval cane in when needed to adapt to the waist size? There is another pannier (or hooped petticoat) that I haven't as yet put up on this blog, having run out of time where there are many, many, many ties. Surely they can only be for the same use which we use them now? If anyone has any thoughts, or more knowledge on this matter please message me. Short Panniers: Panniers from the Kyoto Costume Institute. But I can't seem to pin an image of this particular pannier down to my blog page - I will yet continue to try but for now - check out the following site: www.kci.or.jp/archives/digital_archives/detail_8_e.html . This should take you to a page which has a mannequin wearing a beautiful 18th Cent shift, a brown corset and a pair of short panniers: Have a good zoom in. - In fact - I've just found it on someone else's blog - so here's the image but I've left the above information up as it is still better to go to the website and have a close up look. What's interesting about this is the details they give with the photo. * One full circular round Cane - they depict as Rattan Cane. * Looks like two side arched canes going into the waistline rather than arching round like the others. * Website says fabric is 'Cotton Chintz' which is quite interesting. * Website also uses the words 'oval hoops'; as in plural but I can only see one and that's probably accidental and referring to all the canes used, oval or not. * The panniers literally sit at hip level. * From the image it's not possible to see if there are pockets and perhaps with the side canes going into the waist it might limit the amount of pocket space. Hoop Petticoat 1755-86 - Cora Ginsburg Details: - Now this is an interesting example of a hooped petticoat and the following details are mostly based on complete guess work as I have at the moment, only this image to go from. - Obvious detail is that the cane is only joined to the seen-skirt at the CF in three places: not including the top cane/bone. Now, the only three reasons I can come up for for this go as follows: 1) Only this small CF detail has been caned and for some reason it gets caned with a smaller piece of cane/bone for each level. 2) The cane/bone is ONLY joined to the fabric at these centre points but carries round un-covered and presumably held in place by connecting ties and straps as seen in other panniers.(see above). 3) That the canes.bones are ONLY joined to the fabric at these centre points but that another skirt layer is underneath; allowing an extra covering over the cane/bone so that it is less likely to come through to the top-side of the skirt. In my mind the least likely and least logical is the first option. - Top complete cane holding out the top of the skirt. - No top arched canes. - Gathered in top section with side pockets or easy access - I can't figure it out which is the correct reason for these gaps. - Quite long in length - say lower mid-calf. - Hem not caned or boned. There is an example of a top layer of fabric covering the boning is Iris Brooke's Book 'Dress and Undress'. Here's an image below. Her notes on the page say 'All these are to be found in various collections in England'. (It's the one in the bottom left hand corner if you hadn't figured it out!) Also, having just brought the book 'Costumes Close Up' by Linda Baumgarten and John Watson, they cover this particular item. I've scanned it in to my laptop so you should be able to see it below.... Mid-length Striped Hooped Petticoat:

Play around with the newest Overbust corset pattern IVY. Completely FREE! Comes in 13 different sizes! IVY is the first of her kind, being a BETA version.

My favorite surviving 18th century stays can be found in the Victoria & Albert museums collections. As my previous stays were starting to s...