“Signed by me this 22^nd May, 1906. DANIEL KOPS.”

Almost exactly one hundred and four years later, this unusual and sophisticated corset patent is still of interest.

• Was it manufactured?
• What did it look like when stitched?
• Were there advertising cards featuring these distinctive heart shaped panels?
• Do those panels serve a function or are they merely decorative?

These are just a few of the questions that I instantly thought of when the Editor showed it to me and invited me to play with it.

Now, as some of you may know, historical accuracy is not generally my major concern. Perhaps that will change one day, but for now my focus lies in taking these historical constructions, designs, and silhouettes and developing them into contemporary-wear corsets. So I have left a few of those interesting questions unanswered in this article and hope that you might use the comments section below to speculate on them yourselves. What I have done, however, is focus on the seam lines and shaping of the corset.

Interpreting this patent into a contemporary corset is proving a wonderful challenge and I am thrilled to share my experience of it with you. In this article we will look at the patent and follow one method of re-creating the pattern (draping).

In the second article (“Part 2: Drawing the Pattern in Three Dimensions”), we will re-create the pattern following a second method (patterning onto a bodice block) so that you can compare the two and consider how the two methods may be appropriate for different situations.

Then in the third and final article (“Part 3: Toiles, Comparisons and Construction”), we will construct toiles using both methods, note/make alterations and comparisons to the flat patterns, and hopefully construct a final corset having chosen which method works best or is the most interesting.

 

The Patent

To whet your appetite, here's what I consider to be the most intriguing snippet from the patent's text:

"My invention relates to a peculiar form of apparel-corsets having certain novel functions" (lines 8 -10, page 3).

Peculiar? Novel? These are strange words to us, but I assume Kops' intention was simply to outline the garments' modern character, its style, its effect on posture, and the modern shaping of the bust, waist and hips. But this does make me wonder... will our re-creation of this design actually have any "novel function"? Will its shaping be radically different from earlier and later corsets? Will it behave differently from the usual "Victorian" silhouette that many of us use?

Mr Daniel Kops outlines the key features of his "improvement" for Apparel-Corsets thus:

The corset of my present invention is especially adapted to a full figure, both at the front and at the sides, and I provide a fabric body of peculiarly-shaped parts which in the respective halves of the corset are alike but reversed, and the parts which relate, essentially, to my present invention are in the front portion and include principal sections of cloth shaped much like the letter S or a swan in side profile, which in the sections at the front are placed in opposition and in the front and lower parts come together when the corset is clasped and extend from the top to the bottom edges." Lines 26 – 39, page 3.

I don't know about you, but I often have a hard time reading these old texts. They tend to be riddled with commas where we might use brackets, semi-colons or even full-stops. When reading an old patent, if a sentence is especially long or confusing, try reading it aloud, pausing at each comma. It's a silly little school-girl tip, but it does help!

Kops describes each of the pattern pieces and explains how they connect thus creating a full-length corset with a central "heart-shaped configuration". It seems that the curving and unusual styles lines were the main focus of this piece, and that everything else has been conceived and altered to work around them. One wonders how Kops came to the design of this piece.

He compares the improvements of this design to that of his previous patent, no. 790,061 (awarded in May 1905), which likewise made use of "shield shaped" parts at the sides and under-arms. These parts are designed for both aesthetic and functional purposes, and their distinctive shaping extends

"over and around the hips as to closely fit and engage the same, so that there is no tendency of the corset to slip around over the hips or to move up or down, this function producing an anchorage effect" (lines 30 – 34, page 4).  Essentially, it is paramount that each shaped part be in balance so that the corset may perform its function and be secure about the torso.

 

On construction we are told the following:

"The various sections are parts of a single-ply fabric corset, and the front steels and bones do not extend to the lower edge of the corset, but stop appreciably short of the same, and thereby provide a flexible lower edge of appreciable width adapted to yield to abdominal configurations in a sitting position." Lines 39 – 45, page 3.

The steels stop considerably higher than the lower edge of the corset and we are told that the hips are flexible enough to yield to the body of the wearer when they sit, for comfort.

The bottom of the corset therefore requires securing in order to lay flat beneath clothing, and to be anchored/angled down when standing/walking. Kops uses "hose-supporters [...] coming directly below the front steels" (lines 11 – 14, page 4) and from the sides to do this.

 

Relationship to the body:

It seems that this corset patent follows the normal, basic style lines of the time with a straight-front, full forward bosom, diagonal seams, and slanted waistline being its key features.

As the corset was still everyday wear for most women at this point, a great emphasis is placed upon comfort (being able to sit easily, and so on), despite the fact that such a corset could possibly encourage a sway back, a forward thrust to the chest and a backwards tilt to the pelvis.

This tilted posture is often presented as an integral part of Edwardian corset design:

"[it is] apparent that the waist-line of the corset is tapering or sloping toward the front and center from the back, so that the appearance of a long waist at the front is obtained with this corset, while the appearance of the waist from the back is normal. This function is further assisted by the anchorage effect of the shield-shaped members of drawing down the upper edge of the corset and exercising an influence progressively upon the upper portion a or the front members" (lines 40 – 51, page 4). ie: the corset encourages the body into a certain shape.

With a view to comfort, however, this shape is most apparent when "standing or walking" (line 66, page 4), as the pressure from the shaped panels and the front suspenders is alleviated when sitting, allowing for a more comfortable and natural shape.

How to approach this garment For this study, I was especially interested in the dramatic shaping of the corset. The highly decorative shaping of the panels would provide a lovely surface detail, while the straight front and supposedly very curvy spine of Edwardian corsets is also intriguing. I hope to build a corset that teaches us something (however small) about Edwardian shaping and how to translate these ideas into contemporary corsetry.  I especially love the dipping topline at centre-back. It's a beautiful feature that we don't often see in contemporary corsets.

How To Make The Pattern?

Now the patent, unfortunately, does not feature pattern pieces shown on the flat. If it did, I would no doubt have enlarged them, determined horizontal markers (waistline, hipline, etc. – though the waistline would not be perfectly horizontal), and vertical markers (centre-front, side-seam, centre-back), and altered as required. Without flat pattern pieces we are left with three main options.

1) Work out a basic rectangular framework (of bust, waist, hips, the vertical distances between them, and the front/back distribution of those measurements, from a particular model/body), sketch an idea of the pattern placement, and push the proportions/measurements about until it works. This is my usual method of creating a new pattern, but for some Edwardian styles it seems counter-intuitive.

2) Refer to antique texts to create an historically appropriate bodice block, which we would then draw our pattern pieces onto. As an alternative, Robert Doyle's book "Waisted Efforts" can be referenced.

3) Use the Body Contour method of drawing a pattern onto the dressform, or drape the fabric directly (in this instance I will be using my "Edwardian" shaped mannequin).

In this article, we will focus on draping fabric directly onto the Mannequin (option 3), with the next article focussing on fitting using a bodice block on the Model (option 2).

 

Click the first next to go on to page 2!