My first Thing of the Week was to do the final project for my costuming class last term, 21M.715. This project was based on this site. So it’s basically a regular corset, but modernized a bit and hopefully more useful. Like this guy, I used a zipper in the front, to replace the typical busk. I couldn’t really tell what he used in the back, but I decided to use parachute buckles to replace the grommet and lacing. I also have five strips of one inch wide velcro across the body of the corset that I can attach pouches to.
It turns out that corsets are actually fairly easy to make, and since this was my second one, it was a pretty quick process. I didn’t quite manage it in a week, and it still needs a bit of work, due to my being distracted by the MIT Dramashop production I’m helping with, R.U.R.. It’s mostly done though. I managed most of it in about 8 days and at this point just need to shorten the zippers.
The first step of making any piece of clothing is getting a pattern. You can either take a preexisting pattern and modify it to fit, or make a completely new one. In this case, I made my own using a cool technique that involves an old t-shirt and a lot of duct tape. The same technique can be used to make a dressmaker’s doll and is fairly simple, although you need help from another person. The person helping you first places a strip of duct tape horizontally around your waist and then your hips. The next step is to tape around the bust area, and the process varies a bit based on what you want the corset to do to your breasts. I wanted mine to enhance my cleavage seeing as being Asian, while having lots of other advantages (such as the lack of body hair) doesn’t exactly provide huge breasts. After that, it’s simply a matter of using vertical pieces to fill in the torso and then drawing on your corset and cutting it up. From there, you make a muslin version of your corset, fit it again, and then make the paper pattern.
My corset had 14 panels, which is a bit excessive, even for a corset. Most corsets that I’ve seen people make have somewhere between 5 and 9, although some of the older styles are pretty heavily boned. When making a corset, it’s a pretty simple process of making each of the layers – most corsets have either two or three – and then attaching them. My corset had three, so I’ll go over that process.
The first layer I built was the inner layer, which was made of a fairly heavy duty muslin, to which the bones are attached. If you don’t have an inner layer that isn’t seen from the outside, you attach your bones to the lining, and the stitching will show on the inside. After putting together the layer, you attach bone tape wherever you want a bone. You need at least one near each place that you’ll be adding lacing of some sort, because the laces/busk/parachute buckles/whatever need something to pull against. You also want to make sure that the edges don’t collapse. You also never want to put bones over the bust, since this has the effect of flattening your breasts, which is generally not what one wants out of a corset. For this corset, I used spiral steel bones, since they’re stronger than plastic bones but allow more flexibility than regular steel bones. They also allow you to place them on curved seams, as opposed to only straight ones.
Once I finished the inner layer, I built the shell and the lining. The velcro and webbing for the parachute buckles had to be sewn on before any of the layers were attached to each other, because it’s impossible to sew through bones. I then attached the shell to the inner layer and then the lining to the them both. Since I decided to bag the corset instead of bind it, I attached the layer/shell combo and the lining right sides together on three sides and then flipped it through the fourth. I left the side with the zipper open so I could sew that in last, and then hand-stitched the last seam. Now the zipper gets trimmed and, ta da! you’ve got a brand new corset.