A few months back I was commissioned to create a ‘Jessica Rabbit’ Dress for a singer in a burlesque show. The dress didn’t need to be a complete replica, but the clients specifications were this:

1. Must have deep plunging sweetheart neckline,
2. Must accentuate curves to create the ‘Jessica Rabbit’ shape,
3. Must include an open ended zip for quick changing.

Now usually I would have made a separate corset and then dress to fit over, but this outfit had to be quick to get into and even quicker to get out of (I think the singer has under a minute to change). So I decided to integrate a corset into the dress; it would help achieve the desired curvy corseted shape but keep everything as one piece for ease of changing.

I noticed from the Foundation Revealed survey that a few people were interested in the concept of integrating corsets into clothes/costumes, so thought this would be a perfect opportunity to share my experiments!

I have only ever attempted this a few times, and other dresses have been easier in the sense that the corset has been a hidden layer, attached usually at the neckline. I have done this mostly in bridal wear for things like strapless dresses where extra support is needed - but the ‘Jessica’ dress was a completely different ball game,! So, this is by no means a ‘how to’ article but more of a sharing of my experiments and final result!

Hopefully everyone will know who Jessica Rabbit is and be familiar with the dress she wears in the opening scene of Rodger Rabbit, but for those who don’t, and just to refresh our memories, here is the lovely Jessica:

Taking inspiration from this and a few other visual references I decided on a few design ideas:

• I would make the dress from a red sequin fabric (it needs to sparkle on stage),
• I would use the open-ended zip at the side, where the slit is, so it is short and less visible,
• I would create the corset first and then make a pattern for the dress by draping over the corset,
• I would line the whole dress for extra support and to hide the corset part.

I started by drafting my corset pattern. I used a pattern from a corset of mine that already had a deep, plunging, sweetheart bust line and just extended everything down to the high hip line to create a straight line around the hips. The corset is hidden underneath the dress, so the bottom edge of the corset is functional rather than decorative.

The singe's bust, waist and high hip measurements were 33”/27½”/33”. I decided on a gentle waist reduction of 2½” (6.3cm) as the singer is not a regular corset wearer and also has to belt out quite a big number in this dress, so I didn’t want to go for too much reduction - just enough to give a good curvy shape. I made these alterations to my sample size pattern, cut the pattern out of card and taped it together.

I fiddled around on the stand until I was happy with the shape. Then I made any small alterations to my card pattern and I was ready to go!

I thought I would make the corset up first and baste it together, and then check finer details on the stand as I still needed to decide where to insert the zip. I was torn between putting it into an existing seam, but that would mean it wouldn’t be dead on the side where I wanted the skirt slit, or cutting through panel 3 and putting it in there, as the centre of panel 3 is the true side seam.

I cut my pattern out of coutil and quickly sewed it together; I knew the fit would be ok as it was a tried and tested pattern I was working from with very little alteration so did not do a mock-up.

The construction technique I used was:

• Single layer herringbone coutil,
• Seams pressed open and zigzag over-stitched,
• Boning tape over seams,
• Petersham waist tape sewn directly onto the corset,
• Spiral steels throughout apart from 2 x 1cm wide flat steels at CF and 4 x 7mm flat steels at the CB either side of the eyelets.

The eyelets were one of the very last things I did because they were visible so would have to go through all layers, sequin fabric, etc. Right up until the last stages I used eyelet tape basted at the back so I could keep popping the corset on the mannequin.

Here’s what I ended up with:

First thoughts were that it was very rippled at the front due to the minimal boning, so I decided first off to add in another spiral steel to panel 1 to straighten the bust, and another in the centre of panel 2. I was happy with the side and back. Had this been just a corset (i.e. not hidden in a dress) I would have put a lot more boning in to sort out those ripples, but I didn’t want to make it too rigid as the singer had to be able to move, sing, dance, etc.

I also thought that the sweetheart neckline could be more exaggerated so I decided to lower the CF slightly.

Finally, I decided that I wanted the zip dead on the side seam so would have to cut through panel 3. The zip I was using was going to be partly visible on the dress (I decided not to use a concealed or covered zip as it may catch during a quick change). The visible part of the zip was 15mm wide so I cut a straight vertical line though panel 3 and then used 7mm on each side for a seam allowance to sew to the zip. Once the zip was inserted the actual width of the panel hadn’t changed as what I had added in the zip I had taken away in the seam allowance.

Here is the corset back on the stand with all the modifications:

So you can see I have added in the extra steels and the zip. I chose not to put flat steels next to the zip. Normally I would have to stabilize it in the way that you do eyelets, but it was a really tough zipper and the steels either side of the seams seemed to do a pretty good job - plus I didn’t want to put flat steels on a curved seem and the corset is not tight lacing. With all these things in mind, I decided against supporting steels to keep the corset light and less rigid.

You can see where I changed the shape of the neckline, I got a bit over zealous and cut a bit too much away. This means you can see where I zigzagged a piece of coutil back over and reshaped my sweetheart into move of a V at the CF instead of a deep curve. Thank goodness this will all be hidden under the dress!

At this stage I was pretty happy with how the corset was shaping up, so it was now time to tackle the dress.

I decided to drape a pattern over the corset rather than try and fit an existing dress pattern to it. I thought the draping method would give me a more accurate result - and I do enjoy a bit of draping anyway - so I went with that. I use a thin fusible to drape with and that way I can iron it onto my paper afterwards and save some time, I know some people prefer to drape with calico, but I find this method easier for me.

I decided on a seven-panel pattern: 1 centre front piece cut on the fold, 2 x side fronts, 2 x side backs, 2 x centre backs and I draped the four panels on the zip side to make sure I accommodated that too! I draped the pattern only down to the high hip, which is where the flare of the dress will start; I then added this on later when I transferred to my paper pattern. Once I was happy with everything on the stand I took off my pattern, cut it out and ironed onto my paper.

I drew a waist line as a marker and lined my pattern up to that. I drew on the skirt part of my pattern by extending the lines down (in a slight A line) from each side of the pattern pieces and then measuring 120cm down from the waist line on every extended line, placing a mark and then joining all the marks at the bottom (120cm was the measurement of the singer's waist to floor measurement with heels on, plus 2cm for turning a hem!)

Here is my finished pattern cut out:

Now time to get sparkly!

I cut the pattern out of my sequin fabric and my lining fabric. The sequin fabric has a stretch to it; it was impossible to find one I liked that didn’t have stretch and this is probably because this sort of fabric is used a lot for dancewear. With this in mind, I cut the pattern out as I had drafted it, but knew I would have to alter it a little on the stand as it would end up being a little bigger/baggy with that bit of stretch in it.

With the sequin fabric cut out I was ready to sew.

I sewed the left CB and side back piece together, and kept those separate and then sewed all the other pieces together; this meant that I had two pieces with CB openings and a side opening for the zip.

At this point I will stop and say that if anyone sews sequin fabric regularly then I salute you! It is a nightmare to sew on a machine; slippery, stretchy, sequin-y... agrhh! I went through about three packs of needles for the whole dress. If you are planning on sewing such fabric I highly recommend wearing goggles or safety glasses - a broken needle pinging at your face can be very dangerous!

Now it was time to drape my sequin dress to the corset. I pinned it on at the neckline and lined up all the seams. As suspected, it was a little baggy, mostly at the side seams. All it really needed was to be pinched out at the side seams a little. You can see in the next picture I just pinched out the seam, stretching the fabric across the corset.

I did the same on the zip side and pulled the fabric across, pinned, cut of the excess and then pinned the seam allowance under.

I did the same at the CB pulling the fabric taught over the corset and then cutting off the excess. I then took the whole thing off the mannequin and made all my adjustments:

• I altered the side seam on the right side and took it in so that it was smoother and less baggy.
• I stitched in the ditch of the new side seam to attach it the corset beneath (there was not boning here as it was the middle of panel 3. This was so that it was attached to the corset in the same way that the zip side would be.
• I attached the sides to the zip by turning under the seam allowances and top stitching (luckily stitching is almost invisible on this fabric).
• I took off the eyelet tape at the back and basted the CB seams of the sequin fabric to the CB seams of the corset.

Now it started to get complicated! I had left myself a 1cm seam allowance right at the CB of the corset so that when all the layers were sewn together I could attach the lining and flip it over. Here is a close up of the inside:

From this picture you can see that I added an extra back panel of coutil so that the CB panel was two layers (extra strength for eyelets). You can also see I already sewed in my channels for the flat steels and eyelets as I did not want these to be visible on the sequin side of the dress. You can also see where I sewed the CB edge of my sequin fabric to the seam allowance of the corset.

Okay, lining time. Now, I was fairly confident that the lining would fit in ok as it was a non stretch fabric so I wouldn’t have the problems that I did with that pesky stretchy sequin fabric! I cut my lining, sewed it together in the same manner as the sequin fabric, and pressed the seams open. I then attached it to the corset/dress in the same way you would a normal corset lining, by putting right sides together, sewing down the seam allowance and flipping through. I did this on the CB seams but left the zip for now.

I flipped the lining over I put in my CB steel to the corset and then used a zipper foot to stitch the lining to the corset and dress pressed up close to the back steel, like the way you would secure a busk. Once that steel was in and the lining secured down, I could add in the extra hidden eyelet steel and put in the eyelets.

The CB seams of the sequin fabric and lining were still open on the dress part below the eyelets. I hadn’t sewn them together yet, so at this point I decided to that. I left a 10cm gap under the eyelets and then started to sew from there so that there was a bit of leeway for the corset to be loosened (like a placket on the back of a skirt).

I sewed together both CB seams on the fabrics and pressed them open. I joined the sequin fabric to the lining, wrong sides together, with the seam allowances pressed under and then top-stitched on the sequin side to fix the two layers together.

It was then time to attach the lining to the zip on the inside. To check that the lining wasn’t too big or small and fitted properly, I laced the dress onto the mannequin with the zip done up, and pinned the lining in place down the zipper and around the neck.

It fitted perfectly - hurrah! I pinned under the seam allowance of the lining to the zip and then pinned all along the top edge of the corset to keep the lining in place.

I then took the whole thing off the mannequin and topstitched the lining into place using a zipper foot. I normally wouldn’t attach a zipper in such a drawn out way, but I was kind-of learning and making it up as I went here, so it was a bit more convoluted than usual!

I then basted the top of the lining to the top of the corset and bound the whole top edge with a strip of sequin fabric.

I then finished by turning the hem. The lining and sequin fabric were the same length so I just turned them both together 1cm fold, then another 1cm fold, and machine-stitched along the edge. The stitching got lost in the sequins so I did this on machine rather than hand stitch, which is what I would normally do on a plain fabric.

I made a modesty panel in the usual way and hand stitched this into the lining to finish... and here is the result!

This was a really interesting experiment and I am very happy with the outcome. The stretch in the sequin fabric that I thought would be my enemy was actually really useful in creating a smooth finish to the dress with no wrinkles! The zipper worked really well without supporting steel; time will tell how well it holds up but it seemed to be very stable. I learned a lot making this dress and will definitely feel more confident the next time I need to attempt something like this.

I hope this article has been useful for those interested in tackling such a project and I would be happy to answer any questions if there were any parts that were a bit confusing.

 

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