Sewing

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1880s reproduction silk French S seam corset with hand feathering (lemmy.ca)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by LillyPip@lemmy.ca to c/sewing@lemmy.world

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My own hand-drafted pattern from a V&A museum piece. Spiral steel , silk, and herringbone twill lining.

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[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I’d love to see some of your work!

I’ve tried both cording and synthetic whalebone – I prefer spiral steel, but that’s likely because I like the more shaped 1880s to earlier eras.

Cording doesn’t give much support (it’s great for youth ‘training’ corsets, utility, and maternity corsets, though). Synthetic whalebone is either not conforming enough (the rigid stuff) or too conforming (the lightweight stuff ), in my opinion, but since corsets are so individualised, everyone will have favourites and my opinion could be dead wrong for you.

Funnily, even though spiral steel is pretty heavy, I find it to be perfectly supportive and very comfortable, and since it ‘breaks in’ after a few times wearing, the corset very soon fits you like a glove. If you unpick your own corset after a year or so of wear, you’ll find the spirals have shifted slightly in places to conform to your shape without losing structure. Synthetic whalebone doesn’t do that.

Sorry for going on about it, but it’s nice to find someone else with interest in this. Thanks for coming to my TED talk, lol.