Corset making time

Adapting the past to a modern twisted fairy tale

Posted on 12th January 2016 by Veronica

While I continue to work on the pendant for my stage costume, I started preparing the next step which will be sewing a corset to wear together with a long skirt. The interactive corset pattern from ScandinavianTailoring.com is a pattern I have used before when I made an ensemble to wear for the concerts with my former choir as well as for the stage costume of a black metal band I used to play in.

To draw up the pattern you just need to take four measurements and enter them into the application. It will then generate a custom corset pattern for you that will fit perfectly. Print it, cut out the pieces and tape them together. The corset itself is really comfortable and doesn’t compress your lungs in the wrong places. I found it easy to sing as usual in it, as long as you don’t tighten it far too much of course. With this pattern it isn’t possible if you use your real measurements.

Baroque style corset

Even if this is a modern pattern, it takes a lot of inspiration from the corsets, or stays as they would have been called then, of the mid 1600’s early 1700’s. I love the look with the shoulder straps and the fact that it’s a bit longer than most modern corsets. If you wish you can sew it directly to a skirt like I did with my previous stage costume. It had to retire since the material was too old and fragile, but the corset dress now has a place of honor hanging in my living room.

If you have never sewn a corset before I definitely recommend this pattern to start with. You decide how much boning you wish to use and it consists of relatively few parts and seams. It’s not as curvy as later patterns of the 19th century which are more difficult to sew and it also doesn’t have a busk. I do recommend that you have quite some sewing skills before you get started with this though, and you might need to Google translate the instructions if you don’t know Danish. But the illustrations should be clear enough to work without them.

Now I just need to find a fabric that will provide the look that I’m striving for this time…

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Veronica

Veronica is the founder of Hyperbrain.me. With one foot in the past and one in the future she takes inspiration from older aesthetics and ideas to apply them in updated form today. She is passionate about teaching timeless skills and believes that the world needs more polymaths.