Shape and Ornamentation - Foundations Revealed Competition Entry - Dress Dairy
Shape:
The idea behind this corset was to make a Victorian / 18th century hybrid. By combining the waist shape and reduction of a victorian corset, with the flattened and lifted declotage of 18th century stays I wanted to create the ideal silhouette for high lighting the lattice ribbons and crystal decoration. The finished corset has a 22" waist. I used horsehair sheeting (dyed blue in my washer) silk dupioni (fuzed over coutil) and rayon ribbon. At the waist the ribbon covers a twill tape for support. I decided to double bone the seams (Spiral) because I wanted as much of the strain as possible not on the horsehair. The front and back are flat steels. Two-piece nickle finish grommets. Swarovsky crystals in size 16, and 20 in auora borealis
Construction:
Before I started sewing, I zig-zaged over all raw edges to help prevent fraying. I also zig-zaged the seams flat, since pressing with an iron was kind of useless. For the ribbons, I lay them on the corset and stitched them at the seams in a position I liked. This kept them for moving while I stitched on the casings.
What I learned for next time- Horsehair pokes through itself! In retrospect it seems very silly this never occurred to me. If I make this again, I need to finish the seams under the casings a different way because a few of the hairs are poking through, and well, they poke/scratch. If I ever make this style again I am going to finish the back of the casings with a strip of dense moleskin. I think this will solve the problem, and provide some comport to the wearer. For the binding, I need to use a denser interfacing so the hairs don't poke through. Oh learning curves!
While I was sewing the corset, a photographer saw the in-progress photo and messaged me asking if she should shoot it. I am very glad I said yes because the clean crispness of Mariss's photos really high light the shape of the corset; and Jenny's Tattoos the sheer nature of the material.
Photo-shoot:
Photographer Marisa Pike (https://www.facebook.com/MarisaPikePhotography)
Model Jenny Boa (http://www.modelmayhem.com/1040560)
Ornamentation + Accessorizes:
After the Photo-shoot I embellished the corset with crystals and made some matching accessories from the left over fabrics. I used auora borealis crystals in size 16, and 20. On the silk I used a hot-fix wand, but on the horsehair I needed to use E-600 in order for the crystals to keep from popping off. Even then the Horsehair was very resistant.
Underwear:
Mini bustle:
The mini bustle I made by shortening my striped bustle pattern, I also added a bottom. The boning is 1/2" zip ties, since It's mostly decorative it didn't need to be very strong.The pleating around the bottom was done using the Truly-Victorian fork pleating tutorial: http://trulyvictorian.com/videos/ForkPleats.MOV
Since the crystal application the corset has been featured in another photo-shoot, and the photos will be published in the upcoming January/February Issue of Auxiliary magazine. Please "like" my Facebook page if you would like to see them when they come out: https://www.facebook.com/Anachronism.In.Action
Thanks for reading!