Bustle Era Underwear

Patterns Used:

Related Diaries:

 

When the opportunity to attend a "Victorian" era tea party being held to raise money for a local historic cemetery arose, and after hearing that guests were encouraged to come in costume, I decided it was high time to start exploring some latent 19th century longings. Last winter I had started a diary of a bustle era gown, but since the tea was to be held in the spring, and the weather was probably going to be hot, I wanted to make an outfit that wouldn't boil me alive.

Key to that idea was creating a set of underwear that would allow for some comfort in the (occasionally) scorching May weather we have in these parts. The first part was simple: I chose to use the ruffled petticoat and bustle pad I'd made last fall for a vintage costuming class:

 

 

(I suppose someone may feel the need to point out to me that in the interest of staying cooler, a full length skirt with layers of ruffles probably isn't the way to go. To you, I say "Ptthb.")

The petticoat and bustle pad were both taken from the pattern given in Period Costume For Stage And Screen: 1800-1908 by Jean Hunnisett (one of the most ridiculously difficult books to find in the Northern California public library system, by the way. Not to mention one of the most ridiculously expensive books, too). The patterns were scaled up from the book the old school way, using large pieces of 1" square graph paper, a ruler and a healthy dose of guesswork.

THE CORSET:

I discovered this corset in Fashion by the Kyoto Costume Institute. It is made out of mesh, lightly boned and looks for all the world like it might actually be a fairly cool corset to wear. I was sold on it already, since it's the only mesh corset of this era that I've seen so far, but the fact that I now had a reason to make it got me excited.

 

The mesh is the stuff you use for latch hook rugs. Its got a wide net and is fairly stiff. For the boning casings, I used the pre-packaged double fold bias tape, since it was cheap and readily available. Had I had more time and cash, I would have used the boning casing that is specifically made for corsetry, but the bias tape did well enough to serve my needs.

 

For the pattern, I used the Laughing Moon #100 Dore corset pattern. Those who follow my online journal or who know me in person have probably heard all about the issues I have with the LM companion pattern, The Silverado. Well, the good news is that the Dore style corset isn't as issue-laden as the Silverado. The bad news is that it still has issues. :P

This photo was taken after I'd assembled the pieces using the pattern, with very minor modifications (at this point, the only "modification" was the sizing of the pattern, which required some blending of sizes to come up with a pattern that fit my measurements. This is to be expected, though). You can see in the photo how I've overlapped the pieces and machine stitched them. I salvaged the lacing and busk from a previous attempt at the Silverado (using $20/yd coutil from Lacis, no less). The boning casings have not yet been sewn in.

After the boning casings went on, then the boning itself (my beloved cable ties) and finally the binding, I was ready to test the corset out for real! The bad thing about corsetry seems to be that try as hard as you might, you will never get the pattern to fit without completely finishing it first, and then taking it all apart to fix whatever problems cropped up between the mock-up and the final fitting. Well, maybe *you* don't have that problem, but I sure do. Once I put the corset on and laced it up, I noticed that my breasts went East and West, settling under my armpits. This made putting my arms down difficult because of lumps of fat being where they usually aren't.

After consulting with a few people more knowledgeable than I in the ways of Victorian corsets (and being told that this was normal by a few people), I decided that it probably wasn't going to sit right with me if I left my boobs to migrate outward under my arms. Not to mention it was uncomfortable. Once more I relied on my trusty Brute Force Leather corset to show me the path to enlightenment. Turns out that the top pieces of my mesh corset were too narrow, constricting the bosom and smooshing it outwards rather than letting them rest in a forward position. The only alternative was to rip the binding off the top and bottom, take out the busk, remove the boning channels on four of the seams and cut another center front and side front pieces from the tiny amount of mesh I had left over.

The only thing I did was to create more "spill room" at the top of these four pieces, so now when the corset is laced, my breasts rest comfortably in a forward and locked position.

Coming Up: More photos of the corset and the combinations!