“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! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patterning for the Mannequin

The Body Contour method of draping a pattern involves marking the seam lines directly onto your mannequin, usually with narrow tape stuck into place. You would then use a sturdy interfacing (for translucency) to trace out the shapes created. The aim is always to create lines that will translate into flat 2D pattern pieces, and with practice, this becomes easier.

The benefit of working directly onto this particular mannequin (below left) is that it already holds the extreme S-curve silhouette that I wish to explore, and so I will not need to fiddle with the pattern so much after draping. I’m hoping that when compared with the “human” version, we’ll learn a few interesting points about patterning this style of corset.

Note: I got the mannequin from Proportion London's Retrospective collection of historically shaped mannequins. The price list they sent me last year states that any of the bodies in the Retrospective collection are £190 [approx US$300] each for plain calico (then upwards depending on other finishes/fabrics). But the stands aren’t cheap at around £140 [approx US$225]. Altogether, it comes in about the same as buying a good antique, but you can choose every detail, which was the real selling point for me, and they’re great quality.

Now, I appreciate that not all of us have access to these curvy mannequins, but don’t despair! It is a technique that translates very well. You can take any dress form and use body contour patterning as a way of exploring new style lines in 3D. Say you fancied full hip gussets or perfectly vertical seams and flat patterning is proving tricky; you’ve made your own duct-tape form from your own body and wish to match it perfectly; or perhaps you wish to extend a corset to include a high-back or fancy standing collar. “Draw” your pattern on your mannequin in tape, transfer it to interfacing/paper, and you instantly have a clear and accurate indication of how the 3D shape becomes a 2D pattern piece. This is a wonderful way of developing your “eye”, and is actually a very quick way of thinking up new seam placement and style lines.

The main issue for me with using the Body Contour method is that my mannequin doesn’t have a loose cover and I certainly don’t want to draw or tape onto the velvet! It is also more likely that you will need to tweak the resulting parts, since you may “draw” out shapes that won’t lay perfectly flat when removed from the form. So I often prefer to use an ordinary draping method, which I actually really enjoy.

The Fun of Draping!

You can see in this personal project (right) how I’ve used this technique to play with a set of very complicated diagonals.

This design hasn’t been taken to toile stage yet, and I anticipate an awful lot of fiddling, swearing and head-scratching once we get there! But you can already see how draping allows you to play around with shapes that would be very difficult to visualise with flat pattern drafting. Whether this will result in a successful corset is anyone’s guess, but it certainly taught me a lot about the 2D to 3D relationship of pattern pieces.

Each piece (of about twenty) has been roughly sketched, cut, clipped, trimmed and pinned so that when removed I can trace out a pattern.

The resulting flat pattern (left) is enough to make one run, screaming, for the hills. But had I tried to draft this pattern on the flat I would have spent considerably more time on ill-shaped toiles than necessary.

 

Draping the Pattern

The regular way of draping a pattern can actually be very quick and intuitive, and I’m sure it’s a technique many of you already use. Essentially, I’m draping the fabric directly, manipulating, trimming, sketching and altering pieces as I go, rather than taping the seam-lines onto the mannequin.

My main thought about patterning is that you need to be bold. Yes, corsets are all about precision… but I truly think it’s best to gain confidence and boldness by draping shapes that may be too curvy, too large, too dramatic! The precision will come with time, but if you get hung up on it too soon you may find that you fixate on one tiny wobbly seam or wrinkle at the expense of the overall aesthetic.

Step-by-step:

1: Firstly, a large piece of cotton drill was draped over the front and the centre-front (CF) marked. I referred to the images on the patent and made a mental note of a couple of key points: the tip of the heart finishes just below the waist line, and the heart doesn’t seem to provide any shaping (and can therefore be drawn flat on the main CF pattern piece).	2: I drew the heart in place and then gently pushed and pinned the surrounding fabric to get an idea of where the first seam needed to fall. There will come a point at which the fabric buckles or ripples and cannot follow the mannequin/body smoothly. At this point, a seam is required.
3: I sketched the first seam in place in pencil. This is half of a “shield” shape and the hip side-seam. I then trimmed the excess fabric off and clipped up to the sketched-in seam-line.	4: I also sketched in the top and bottom style lines. I decided to keep this piece as a sweetheart midbust, but have altered the lower edge as I have no need for the garter extensions.
5: The second major piece draped in place. Next, I “eyeballed” and sketched the side-back panel. This is where it pays off to practice “looking” closely, as a portrait artist would. If you have ever taken life-drawing classes you will probably have been told that you can make a wonderful and evocative image with the minimum of pencil marks. It isn’t the number of marks you make that counts, it’s how accurate or how beautifully shaped those marks are. So spend time looking. Make mental notes of reference points. Look at the patent again. What happens at the side seam? Is it perfectly vertical? No, it curves. If you were to overlay a vertical straight line, to which side would the side-seam curve? Where does it curve below the high hip? Where does it curve at the underarm? The more you look at these things carefully, the more natural and intuitive it will become.	6:  The third major piece draped in place. You can now begin to see how the negative spaces remaining need to be filled with those "shield" shapes. I roughly drew each of the remaining shapes on the flat, trimmed and clipped their provisional “seam allowances” and pinned them into place. When pinning the pieces together, it becomes apparent where you’ve gone right and where you’ve gone wrong. Perhaps a piece is far too short, or too wide? Simply trim it down to size or add extra fabric and re-draw your lines.
Figure 7a – You can see how my roughly sketched "shield" is too chunky for the available space.	Figure 7b – Here you can see how I pressed the fabric into place in order to visualise the changes needed.
7: For simplicity, I made all the main vertical panels first and left those “shields” until last. With the shields, I spent a bit more time thinking carefully. It wasn’t only about getting the shape right, but about considering how I would construct those seams at a later stage (more on that in Part 3). Getting the shields to be the correct shape and scale was rather tricky, and required lots of pinning, sketching, trimming, and imagination.	Figure 7c – By pinching, pinning and clipping, each “shield” was altered to fit.
8: The first panel has a slight ripple in it here, but visualise the piece held straight and flat with steel boning and you can see how the Straight-front shaping is maintained. Of course, even draping has its limitations, and it’s important to imagine and visualise what will happen later. What will happen with the addition of boning, decorative fabric layers, pressure from lacing, and so on?	9: You can also see that I didn’t worry about the lacing panel. Having draped the rest of the corset and without a back view in the original patent, it became clear that the easiest thing to do at this stage was simply jot down the main measurements from the second last panel to the centre-back, so that I could draw it out on the flat as I would for nearly any other corset.
10: A very rough sketch made simply so that I could write down the remaining measurements in order to flat pattern a lacing panel.	11: Having finished draping and feeling quite happy with the shape, I re-drew in all the seam lines using a pen for clarity.
12: The drape was then removed, and then the shapes were carefully unpinned and laid out, using a basic rectangle to ensure the pieces were placed properly in relation to each other on the horizontal and vertical planes. I may regret this later, but I didn’t especially worry about the slanted waistline as it seemed unnecessary to the project. Time will tell! You can see the whole process here using the first panel as an example (each subsequent panel was copied out in the same way).	13 - As each piece was carefully draped (rather than cut from a bodice block) they already laid flat and did not require any further manipulation. The baking paper was taped down with low-tack masking tape, just to hold everything steady whilst tracing. You can see here how the central decorative heart does not provide any shaping, which poses an interesting question for once we reach the construction stage: Should that central heart be cut from a different fabric? Appliqued in place? Delineated with some bias binding as a quilter might do? I’m still undecided about how I’ll do it, but what would you do?
14: Regular greaseproof paper was used to trace the piece. Here is the original piece of fabric and the traced shape.	15: I prefer having my paper patterns running from left to right (ie: centre-front on the left, centre-back on the right), so I re-drew each line from the wrong-side of the tracing paper.
16: Then the tracing paper was flipped back over and carefully lined up with my rectangular framework as neatly as possible. The traced piece was again lightly taped in place, for accuracy.	17: I re-traced the lines again, which (as I’m sure you’ll all remember from school!) resulted in the pencil on the reverse of the tracing paper being transferred lightly onto the white paper. Those darker lines mean our tracing is done! Very satisfying.
18: The tracing paper is removed and any parts where the graphite didn’t transfer are filled in by hand.	19: This process was repeated for each piece, then a centre-back lacing panel was drawn in using the taken measurements as a guide. The whole pattern was then inked. Any jarring sections were smoothed out, as it seems to be true that a beautiful pattern yields a beautiful corset and often smoothing over the lines gives a more beautiful final effect than matching the form exactly does. The seams of this pattern haven't been trued or messed with in any other way, so it will be exciting to see what happens with the toile and which parts need tweaking.

 

Thoughts for the Next Challenge

Having now created a draped pattern, it becomes easier to see the individual shapes that come together to create this patent’s design. Following that S-curve is quite the feat of engineering, and I’m convinced that flat pattern drafting would have been considerably harder.

That said, it would be very interesting to see what would happen if we now used the FR corset drafting process to alter this draped pattern for a new body.

To that end, the draped pattern is available here as a .png file (smaller version right) and the FR drafting instructions can be found here.  If any of you make up new versions of the pattern, please do email them in to FR.

In the next instalment on this patent, we will be adapting what we know about these shapes to the measurements of an actual human being by drawing onto a bodice block. I’m assuming this will be a tougher process and will require extra work and some mathematics, but stick with it and we’ll struggle through together! Having done this drape gives us a real head-start, as we have now developed our “eye” a little bit and will have an idea of how the lines we draw in 3D will translate to a successful flat pattern.

We will also need to deal with waist reduction next month, and this pattern will be a useful reference point when considering where that reduction should be placed.

Thanks for reading!

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