After deciding to join the competition at the last minute, I thought I should keep my entry simple. So of course, I chose a pattern I had never used before, in a style I had never done before, out of material I had never used before, with embellishments I had never tried before. However, despite all the new things I tried (a fused stretch fashion fabric, machine embroidery, a single layer corset, enlarging and resizing a pattern in on the computer in Illustrator), it remained a relatively simple project to do.

I decided on the pattern and bought fabric, hoping to get inspiration for the other portion of the themes, the five senses. When I found a matching sheer, I hoped to find some neat way of embellishing the corset in a very textural way, but I couldn't make that idea gel. I ended up using the sheer to create a matching ensemble, complete with historically inspired ruffly bust improver.

Of course, in deciding on this design, my corset became a very simple reproduction of the E. F. Hume patent, so I decided to do contrast binding and top-stitching, as well as contrast embroidery on the ruffles embellishing the rest of the ensemble. The machine embroidery on the embellishments went very smoothly, despite it being my first time doing so. The contrast top-stitching, on the other hand, something I have done in my job as a costume technician on different types of garments as well as on other corsets for my own projects, was an ordeal because of the length of the pieces combined with the stiffness of the fabric. It was difficult to get through the machine straight and consistently, particularly on the back panels along the grommets.

At the last minute, it turned out I had made some sort of mistake in the resizing of the pattern or construction or something (I am not sure what, since my mockup was the correct size and I based my resizing on a custom corset for the model, double-checking frequently) and it didn't fit the model I had designed it for, although the rest of the ensemble fit perfectly. Luckily, the other corsetiere shooting with my model that day was a much closer fit for the corset (although not at all for the rest of the ensemble), so I at least have pictures of the finished corset sans ensemble on a model it fits better.

For a simple project, I had a silly amount of setbacks and technical problems I did not expect, but ultimately I love the finished product and the photos--and especially that ruffly bust improver!

Dress Diary