1908 Transitional Corset

Category: 1900s corset patterns

(Editor's Note: We posted this 1908 German corset pattern as a Pattern Challenge earlier in the year. Sabrina has done a wonderful job of pulling the puzzle pieces together)

I had never made an Edwardian-style corset before, but had recently made a Victorian as well as a 1910s corset, so I was eager to try this style that fits in between chronologically. Edwardian corsets are extraordinary feats of design, filled with gussets, curved seams, and beautiful shaping and this one is no exception. Although it looks complicated at first, La Couturière Parisienne has an incredibly helpful page showing how the pieces are meant to be joined together (scroll down to the entry "corset").

In 1908, the fashionable silhouette was slowly moving away from the very distinctive Edwardian S-curve to a somewhat straighter line with a slightly higher waist. This German corset pattern from Wikimedia Commons reflects these changes. Looking at the picture of the finished product, you can see that the top edge is nearly below the bust and the back does not have the extremely exaggerated curve of previous years. However, this corset pattern still has a number of similarities with earlier corsets such as gussets for bust and hips as well as a straight front.

The Pattern

To begin, I had to enlarge the pattern. Comparing the pattern shown on the Wikipedia Commons website with the overview on La Couturière Parisienne reveals that the Wikipedia pattern is missing a piece. Because of this, I used the pattern given on La Couturière Parisienne to fix it. Since the pattern as given is a boxed pattern, I didn't want to just scale up the pattern. It's probable that the pattern wasn't meant to be used that way and that the drawings aren't intended to be perfectly to scale. Instead, I used the measurements given to mark points and then played connect the dots with them. La Couturière Parisienne gives a good description of how this is done.

I made a scaled copy of the pattern (PDF) laid out on a 1 inch graph so that it's easier for you to use. Main body pieces are labelled 1-6 from front to back. Bust gussets are labelled B1 and B2. Hip gussets are labelled H1, H2, and H3. Tabs for suspenders are labelled T1 and T2. The approximate measurements from the flat pattern are: mid/under-bust = 36 inches, waist = 26 inches, and high hip = 44 inches. The waistline is marked with a dashed line. No seam allowances are given on this pattern. Boning placement is also not shown, but can be seen on the original pattern. The seam lines probably do not match up exactly. I didn't make a mock-up of the pattern as is, so I can't say for sure

Initial measurements told me that this corset was far too big for me and that I would have to re-size it. Since I'm both short (only 5 ft. tall) and short-waisted I decided that I would shrink the entire pattern. This would reduce the height as well as the circumference. The easiest way I could think of doing this by hand was by using the radial projection method. A great video of this method can be found on Centuries Sewing's blog. The only difference from the usual way this is done is that I multiplied all my measurements by 0.9 to get a pattern that was 90% the size of the original. It's unlikely that most people will have to reduce the overall size like I did though, I often hear that antique and vintage patterns tend to run a bit short for most people.

The resulting pattern was still a bit big after I compared it to my Victorian corset measurements, so I took a little bit off the sides of some of the main pattern pieces and the bust pieces. I also completely left out H1 in addition to taking off some width from the other two hip gussets. I allowed for an approximate 2-3 inch lacing gap as well as some reduction in the waist, but none in the bust and hips. Taking this pattern, I traced it out on pieces of canvas for a mock-up. (In the spirit of waste not, want not, I was able to use an old mock-up and cut out almost all of the pieces from that. I only had to cut out one or two pieces from unused canvas.)

Mock-up #1

I assembled all the pieces, minus the suspender tabs, and used masking tape to apply minimal boning. Although the lines looked alright, the corset was definitely too big. I was able to lace it closed and the corset was just fitted, not really snug. To fix this, I took about an inch and a half off the main body pieces and the hip gussets, evenly from top to bottom. To get more waist reduction, I curved in the pieces more at the waist on the main body pieces and took a little off the top of the hip gussets.

Mock-up #2

This one looked much better. There was a definite lacing gap at the back of a couple inches. It fit comfortably and gave a nice shape. I added the suspender tabs so I could see how they looked. I also drew on the waistline on one side so that I could used it for reference later. This corset had a problem that I frequently run into when making corsets. The centre front seam angled like this / with the bottom moving toward my left hip due to the asymmetry of my body. I took about 1/4 inch off the bottom of piece 3 on the right side only to account for this.

Corset Assembly

Putting the text that accompanies the pattern into an online translator gave me some (grammatically strange) basic instructions on construction. It talks about the benefits of making a corset at home, which can be fitted to the individual. It gives some advice on fitting the corset such as making it a little smaller than the body in order to leave a lacing gap and to fix wrinkles by adjusting the waist and hips. It also gives instructions on inserting the busk, bones, lacing holes, and flossing. Unfortunately, the translation isn't the best and it makes following the instructions exactly very difficult.

I looked at a lot of extant corsets online from this era to get an idea of how I wanted to make my corset. Edwardian corsets were made from a wide variety of materials, ranging from fabrics as light as batiste and sateen to fabrics as dense as coutil. The instructions recommend drill or something that sounds like a mesh, probably for summer corsets. Cotton appears to be the most popular fibre, but many corsets were also made from beautiful silks. I wanted to make a more utilitarian, functional garment, and I didn't want to use anything too difficult or costly for my first time making this corset, so I settled for some plain-weave cotton I had sitting around, slightly heavier than cotton twill. I dyed the white fabric for fun, using a combination of yellow onion skins, curry powder, and tea bags to get a light cornmeal colour. You can see the samples I made during the dyeing process. There are a couple blotchy spots and the fabric has a bit of a fragrance, but it was an interesting experiment for me of using natural dyes. Inspired by the lightweight corsets of the time, I decided to make mine single-layered, something else I'd never tried before.

Other considerations influenced my decision on what to use as boning. The German text recommends real whalebone as the best. However, its increasing rarity during the period, popularized the use of steel as a less expensive substitute. Continuing on with the theme of trying new things, I thought I would try using cable ties as boning, the skinny ones, not the wide ones. I've used these cable ties before in a fully-boned set of stays and once as a substitute when I didn't have any spiral steels on hand for a seam that ran over the bust, but never as the primary boning for a curvier corset. This was a decision that I made after a lot of thought. My figure is one that doesn't need a lot of support, I just need something to maintain the tension on the fabric. I find spring steel to be a little uncomfortable over my ribs, some of which jut out a little bit. While I could get around this by using spiral steels, I've found that the skinny cable ties and spiral steels have some very similar qualities. Both have a lot of give to them. Skinny cable ties also have the benefit of being able to bend side-to-side somewhat, like spirals do, making them ideal for slightly curved seams. Another benefit is that cable ties are much cheaper for me to purchase. The downside of using cable ties is that the plastic will probably eventually develop a permanent curve, which the spiral steels wouldn't. If I were making a corset that I planned to wear a great deal, I would have gone with spirals. Since this corset is something that I will only wear occasionally, however, I didn't have any qualms about using the cable ties. For the centre back, though, I always use spring steel to support the lacing.

Another thing I had to think about was how I was going to cut my corset. When making the mock-ups, I had kept the pieces in the same direction they were in the original pattern. This meant that the grainline was parallel with the boxes that the pattern is drawn in. It worked fine for the mock-ups, but there wasn't a lot of stress put on them. Conventional corsetry wisdom states that the grain should run perpendicular to (or parallel to) the waistline. This is what I did for the final product. I ended up cutting the corset on the crosswise grain of the fabric, so that the lengthwise grain would end up running around the body. This is a method that was used in period corsetry. The idea behind this is that the most stress on the corset goes around the body and, since the lengthwise grain has less stretch to it than the crosswise grain, cutting in this direction should prevent the corset from stretching. Because there is so little stress on the corset downwards from gravity, there isn't much need for as much stability in that direction. I used pencil to mark all seamlines on the wrong side, adding a seam allowance when cutting. I also decided against adding the suspender tabs. I wasn't really into them aesthetically, and I had no plans of wearing suspenders with this corset.

In putting the corset together, I got all the gussets out of the way first. B1 is sewn into B2, H1 and H2 are sewn into 4, and H3 is sewn into 5. The main pieces have the seam allowances cut up to the point. I ironed the seam allowances of the piece that the gusset goes into to the wrong side, dwindling away to nothing at the point. I outlined the sewing lines for the gusset on the right side using a fast-fade, erasable sewing pen. Right sides facing up on both pieces, with the gusset underneath, I topstitched at the very edge, pivoting at the point. Since this was a single-layer corset, all the seams need finishing. I graded the seam allowance of the main piece before felling the seams, using the seam allowance of the gusset to encase the raw edges. I made sure that my tension was correct so that it looked fine when sewing it from the wrong side. This made everything nice and neat, inside and out.

Next, I inserted the busk, using facings. I tried another new-to-me technique of putting in a waist tape. I used a 1 inch cotton twill tape. This was sandwiched in between piece 1 and the facing. The waistline that I marked on Mock-up #2 helped me make sure that the tape was in the right place. I continued assembling the pieces from front to back, felling every seam as I went along, and making sure to keep the waist tape out of the way.

I made boning cases out of strips of cotton twill which I ironed to the correct width. I decided to use to pieces of boning side-by-side, instead of the single piece indicated by the original pattern. This is a common feature in Edwardian corsets. The original pattern also has seven places marked for boning. I went with only four (not including the boning at centre back): over the bust, to the outside of the bust, the side, and side-back. These were all places that the original pattern has bones. The bulk at certain places due to the meeting of flat-felled seams made me reluctant to try and sew over that with even more layers of fabric added, namely where piece 4 and H2 join piece 5 and H3. The fact that I had made it several inches smaller than the original pattern also made me think that I wouldn't need as much boning. When sewing the boning cases, I caught the waist tape under them, making sure to pull the tape taut in the spaces between. The cases were sewn from the wrong side, using the presser foot as a guide for width. A few places are a little wonky, but practice made a great deal of improvement, if not perfect.

The centre back was cut extra wide, so that I could fold over the excess fabric and use it as a facing. I caught the end of the waist tape in this facing. (I'll admit that I forgot to do this the first time I sewed down the facing and had to rip out that seam.) I sewed a channel at the very edge of the centre back and then sewed another channel at the edge of the facing. This left me just enough space to set the grommets.

Finally, I bound the edges using 1/2 inch cotton twill tape. I like using twill tape as binding on corsets that don't need any fancy finishing because it's easy. No fussing with cutting bias or straight-grain strips and no ironing. Plus, the tape is flexible enough to go around curves nicely and the twill weave shows me the exact halfway point so it's easy to line up with the edge of the corset. I topstitched the tape on the right side and whipped the wrong side by hand.

The Corset

The finished product is smaller and differently shaped than the original pattern. Compare the finished corset measurements: mid/under-bust = 28, waist = 21, and high hip = 30 to the measurements of the pattern given above. It still gives a very nice silhouette and looks a lot like the picture of the finished product, although the top doesn't slant as much as in the picture. The top hits somewhere in between mid-bust and underbust giving a little bit of bust support. The bottom curves nicely, allowing for free movement of the legs and comfortable sitting while smoothing the lines over the hips. The waist tape gives more waist definition than a corset without a waist tape. Even though I am only getting about two inches of waist reduction, it looks very nipped in at the waist, and feels different. This is fine on my left side, but is a little uncomfortable on my right side where it digs in a bit (more asymmetry issues again). Overall, though, this corset is very comfortable.

There are a couple issues and things that I would change next time. Because I had to take out so much from the original pattern, this resulted in some very narrow pieces. Piece 4 had some overlap with the felled gusset when felling the seam. And piece 6 was barely wide enough for me to fit the two boning channels and grommets. I think a five main piece corset would work better for me than six pieces. For someone whose body is curvier or larger than mine, however, this corset would be fantastic. All the seams would allow for more refined shaping and fit, and the pattern would give a gorgeous curvy shape, especially with the inclusion of H1. There are some small wrinkles at the waist and through the curved front pieces, possibly due to the grainlines. This could probably be fixed by adding more boning to this area and flossing the bones. However, as mentioned before, the bulk from the felled seams made me unwilling to add more boning. I could solve this next time by using a thinner fabric. I may still floss the bones in this corset to maintain the vertical tension in the fabric. I deliberately cut the bones on the short side to copy the picture given of the original corset.

In spite of these few problems, I am really happy with this corset. It is a neat and clean product that fits well and gives a great shape. I strongly recommend giving this pattern a try. Now all I need is a decadent, over-the-top Edwardian dress to wear over it!