“The objects of my said improvements are, first, to provide a corset simple in its construction, easily and conveniently adjusted, and without mobility or shifting when worn; second, a corset securing symmetry of form and affording a stay and support to the trunk and abdomen with ease and comfort to the wearer and yielding adjustments at any desirable point; third, a corset by the proper use of which the form and figure of the wearer may be molded and fashioned to please and gratify the individual taste and fancy, obesity reduced to the minimum, and the lean and lank agreeably rounded out, and the health improved and promoted.”

And breathe. I’m not sure if Charles Dickens himself could cram much more into a single sentence.

The Abbie King patent (available here) is the first corset patent I have attempted to recreate. I have drooled over other patents, mostly just looking at the diagrams. Patent specifications had never been on the top of my must-read list. I would usually get bored and/or distracted halfway through the first sentence and go back to drooling over the pictures. I am sure I am not alone in this aversion to reading patent specifications, so I will try my best to carve this one down to the pertinent details for someone trying to actually make this corset.

Abbie King’s Objectives:

1. Simple to make, easy to adjust, with little to no shifting when worn.
2. Create symmetry of form, support the trunk and abdomen with ease and comfort, and adjustable at desirable points.
3. A corset able to mold the body to please the wearer, whether slim or obese. Health improved and promoted.

From what I can decipher of the rest of the patent specification, Ms. King based the uniqueness of her design on several inserts/panels that are essentially optional to the corset. The adding, removing, or resizing of these panels propose to make this corset uniquely adjustable for fit and comfort.

I am setting out in this article to determine whether or not Ms. King’s corset actually does what it proclaims. I am not, at this point, going to make a “pretty” show piece corset - but rather a rough, but sturdy, toile that I can test to see if it can accomplish these goals without major reworking of the design.

The first thing I actually did as part of my research for this corset was to try to unearth a little of Ms. King’s history. Her patent application states that she filed for her patent in Logan, Iowa in 1895. Yes, the patent is called an 1897 corset but the paperwork was actually filed in 1895. Logan, Iowa is only about three hours from where I live, so I was hoping against hope that maybe there was some sort of information on Ms. King through the town/county historical society... but no such luck. If there had been, you can bet I would have hopped in my car and taken a road trip to check it out!

Historically speaking, Logan appears to be a typical Midwestern boom town that finds its roots in agriculture and logging. While it was established in the mid-1850s, growth and expansion accelerated with the ending of the Civil War and by the 1880s it was boasting its own opera hall that was also used as a dance hall, roller rink, and education center for agriculture and home economics. If you are interested, you can read more about Logan here. My guess would be that Ms. King may have taught home economics courses at the education center. I would still like to make a trip to Logan some time, just to see if I might have better luck digging-up information in person. If Logan is similar to the small town I live in, most of the historically-informed are of the pre-technology generation.

As I looked over the diagrams given for this corset and considered the time period in which the patent was submitted, it made me a little sad. This corset, even from looking at the flat drawings, was obviously designed to have some dramatic lines. By the time the patent was given in 1897 there would only be a few short years left before the extreme change to the silhouette that takes place at the turn of the century.

It took me quite a while to decide how I was going to approach enlarging these drawings into something resembling the appropriate scale for construction. I know there are some excellent articles right here on Foundations about how to go about doing this mathematically and digitally, but I have an awful time “reading” about mathematical processes and making any sense of it. I am sure that given enough time and practice I could muddle out how to do this enlargement properly, but honestly, I am much happier sitting at my sewing machine than at my computer.

Since there is no way of knowing when one looks at one of these patent diagram whether or not they are actually drawn to scale, it was going to be a gamble no matter how I decided to enlarge the pieces. So, I simply imported the diagram into my simple paint program and stretched the diagram proportionally until the center front and the waist measurements resembled measurements that seemed close to reasonable.

Once I printed out the pieces, I was able to take some better measurements. I compared the vertical measurements of my pieces with one of my overbust patterns. The length of the pieces all seemed about right, maybe a little on the long side. A little too long is fine with me; I would rather work with too much length than not enough. Horizontally, the measurements were a little larger than I was expecting. However, I realized that I needed to decide whether or not to add additional seam allowances so I opted not to and this brought the waist measurement down to a number closer to my own. The bust and hip measurements were still considerably larger than my own bust and waist measurements. This is where I really began to see the nice amount of curve and shape going on with this corset.

Now that I had corset pieces of adult, human proportions (or pretty close), I started trying to understand the details of each piece so I could better envision Ms. King’s plan of construction. Here is how Ms. King lays out her pieces:

• Pieces a, b, b1, and c are considered the front half of each side,
• Pieces c1, e, f, and g form the back half of each side,
• The front and back sections are connected at the under arm seam by piece d,
• Pieces I, o, and o1 are Ms. King’s adjustable inserts, with o and o1 being specified as “elastic connectors”,
• Pieces h and h1 are optional shoulder straps.

Patents can be confusing, but if you can get past the wordiness and dig down to the details you will find most of the information you need. Unfortunately the patent was rather vague on how the “elastic connectors” work and what exactly they are made of. Basically o and o1 are meant to be stretchy. I am not sure what kind of elastic materials were available in 1897. How stretchy where they compared to modern elastics? Would it have been a stretchy fabric like a power net or something more like our elastic waistband material? The elastic connector pieces from my draft were pretty narrow measuring only ½” (13mm) to ¾” (19mm) once seam allowances were taken out.

There is also one other optional piece of elastic included in this patent. Piece p is meant to be an elastic band that finishes off the bottom edge of the corset. “The corset is manufactured with and without the elastic border p, to suit the demand of the customer.” Again, I have no idea what type of elastic or elastic fabric this might have been. We certainly have many choices to experiment with when using modern fabrics.

I decided to go ahead and put my first toile together using a heavy cotton sheeting, just to see if the shape and fit would be anything close to workable. I had some stretch sateen from another project that I used for the elastic inserts.

Another feature I found interesting is a very specific description of the center back closure, which is designed to use buckles and strapping rather than the more traditional grommet/eyelets and laces approach. This is not claimed as part of the innovation of this particular patent, making me wonder if this was a common closure method for the 1890s. I would love to hear from any of you who are more familiar with the historical details of the time period. The buckles are actually meant to be inserted between panels f and g with panel g effectively acting as a protective panel between the wearer and the buckles.

I did search for some type of buckle to simulate what may have been available back then, but sadly I wasn’t able to find anything that didn’t smack of the twenty first century. Judging from the illustration these would have had to have been pretty small buckles. Those of you with more familiarity of Steampunk paraphernalia may know of some sources for smaller buckles that would be suitable for this type of use.

When I put this first toile together I was still trying to decide what I was going to do about the buckle situation, so I was not able to try it on myself - having no way to close the back. I used my mannequin to at least see what the proportions were looking like. I got a sense right away of what type of figure this style of corset seemed to be intended for.

As you can see from the pictures there is abundant fabric through the underarm area into the bust and even more abundant fabric through the hips and abdomen area. The other interesting development, which I suspected from looking at the pattern pieces, was a definite cupping shape through the front abdomen. To me this indicates that Ms. King was either looking to create significant hip spring and/or create space and containment for significant “fluff”. I believe that the abundant underarm and bust space is designed for those same purposes.

I have spent the past 10 years of my professional life making and altering bridal and formal wear. In this age of strapless everything (bridesmaid, mothers, and bridal dresses) one of the major concerns I see over and over is the management of the bust. The vast majority of commercial dresses are not designed for anyone with a cup size higher than a C, no matter the size of the dress. So if you have the misfortune to stand up in a wedding in one of the aforementioned dresses, but your bust size runs closer to the middle of the alphabet than the beginning, you are going to be making a bee line to your nearest seamstress and begging her to work her magic. I have seen it all: side boob, back boob, and so much up front boob that the dress bodice barely covers the nipple line. I believe Ms. King’s corset was designed with these very problems in mind.

Now I just had to test out my theory. As I was working though my thoughts on Ms. King’s intended purposes, I made the decision to make a grommet panel to insert between panels f and e rather than trying to search out buckles. Buckles vs. grommets are really an aesthetic issue and have no effect on the final issues of fit, comfort, and adjustability.

With a grommet panel inserted I tried the cotton toile on myself. Unfortunately my husband was not around to snap a picture for me and I am not good at 'selfies'. Now this was just a rough fit, pre-boning. I could tell that it was going to be large in the hips and the bust for me and close on the waist. I could tell that the front cupped abdomen would probably be unnecessary for me. While I have large hips, I don’t have much abdominal fluff. The length was also more than I need for my torso. Folding the bottom edge up about 1½” (38mm) was a much more promising look for me.

There are no specific marking or directions in the patent specifications as to how much boning or its location throughout the corset. The only mention of boning is: “Cords and stays, either or both, and the usual steels are used in the manufacture of this corset.” So I basically boned each seam. I use heavy duty industrial zip ties on all of my experimental corsets.

After that initial try-on without boning, I wanted to see what would happen with boning before I moved on to a better fabric. I knew that the cotton sheeting had its limitations and wouldn’t show me the whole truth of the corset, but it would help me see where I was going a little better. You can see from the dress form pictures how the boning fills out the shape and form of the corset. I did have to pad out my form through the bust and at the hips/abdomen. I also got a better idea of the intended silhouette.

Ms. King’s stated goal was to make a corset that was easy to adjust with her changeable inserts i, d, o, and o1. It occurred to me that I might want to see what kind of shape I ended up with if I left out all of those pieces. Since the bust and hips where quite large on me with all of the inserts, I was curious to see if taking them out would be a better fit for my body.

For my next stage toile I cut all of the main pieces out of bull denim and the elastic inserts out of the stretch sateen. These pieces sew up together quickly and they all fit together as smooth as can be! I stitched the corset together leaving out all of the inserts and this is how it looked.

The biggest change was to the bust shape, since i is a generous insert. The removal of this piece creates a much more workable shape for me. I would probably need to add in a small bust insert but I do not need the additional side coverage that panel d provides to the hips and under the arm. I would need to take some considerable excess out of the hips and abdomen, most likely removing the elastic gusset, but the general shape works well.

At this point I made the decision not to make this corset to fit myself, but to continue through with all of the original pieces and then see if I could find a body to fit. I had no idea how difficult it would be to get people to try on a corset for me!

Initially I had commitments from almost a dozen women of different shapes, sizes, and proportions, but at the end of the day I have only been able to try it on three different women; two of whom did not want their picture taken. The model who agreed to let me take her picture is pretty similar in shape and size to me so there is not much of a dramatic difference in the sizing and alteration change we would both need to make.

As you can tell from Ms. A’s sweatshirt, it was a very chilly morning when I had her try this on! I knew that the overall size of the corset was going to be large on her so I had her leave her sweatshirt on to simulate some extra fluff.

Adjustments could definitely be made at Ms. King’s key points. I think I may have inadvertently pulled the front waistline up when I pinned the shoulder straps in place. I am not sure exactly where on the shoulder the straps are supposed to land but the seemed a tad wide set on both of us.

This is the corset on me without any pinning out of excess fabric.

You can see that there is a considerable amount of extra fabric at the bust and hips/abdomen. The incredible thing is how comfortable this shape is. Now I am not a corset making or wearing expert. I have only been wearing and making corsets for the past two years but I really, really liked how this corset felt on me even being too big. I could feel the potential in the shape. There is support and coverage in all of the right places and the individual pieces really work well together. My tentative summary of this patent is that it does exactly what Ms. King said it would do. I am excited to work on re-sizing this corset to fit me. If it is as comfortable as I hope it will be, I think I may have found my daily wear style!

Here you can see what a difference just pinning it in a little makes:

I would highly recommend trying this patent for yourself. It really goes together simply and neatly. I am glad I took the chance on this patent and I hope you do too!

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At the last minute I was able to get a couple more models to try the corset! These ladies were both bustier than myself and the other model. Both ladies definitely filled out the bust much better but there was still excess fabric that could be taken out. The hips were just plain-old too full for any of us.

 

Here's a sneak peak at what's coming next...

 

 

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