It's the middle of winter here in Canada, and I tend to battle depression when the days shorten to seven hours of daylight, like many other northern-residing people. One proven form of relief is to expose oneself to more light rays during the day, and what better way to maximize light than have it reflect off a shiny surface? The bathing beauties of the 40s and 50s did this by holding tinfoil-like panels up to their faces to get the sun's rays both from above and reflected from below. Well, with the outside temperature being -25°C (-13°F) I'm not about to go sunbathing, so shiny corsets are my plaything right now!

When I think of shiny corsets, I think of Wonder Woman in her powersuit of blue, red and gold. I think of armour and metal corset-type garments of the past. And then my thoughts drift towards pageant queens, but I'm not sure why, as I have yet to see one wear a corset. I have seen some amazing work using metallic leathers, like the Fae corset by Larissa at Wilde Hunt Corsetry, and I made an underbust for a client out of a metallic and two tone brocade that turned out to have the illusion of steel.

And then, of course, there is Madonna in her Jean-Paul Gaultier corset and costumes.  

Fabric Choices

In browsing online and at my fabric store, I have several options for the outer layer of my shiny corset:

• Pearlized or metallic leather – I don't think pearlized versions are shiny enough for this project, as it is more of a subtle sheen instead of the 'in-your-face' glitz I desire. The gold and silver Metallic leathers are definitely shiny but I don't think I want to make a leather corset right now.
• Patent leather – super high gloss but no glitter...
• Sequin-encrusted fabric – this would give the uber-shine, but I don't want the chance of the wearer's arms to rub on the sides risking either raw arms or dislodged sequins - not that I've tried this fabric yet myself... I am just musing and thinking out loud. This version certainly looks fabulous!
• Lamé – a woven fabric made from a strength fiber like polyester on the warp, and metallic ribbons running in the weft, creating a supershiny fabric. This can come in a variety of colors and is the stuff I envision they used for Wonder Woman's outfit.
• Metallic knit – this is nice and shiny and I think it would be easy to make a nice looking corset using it, but isn't my first choice today. Mostly because with the knits, there is a “space” between the stitches and I think that the coutil will show through in an undesired way. With the metallic thread mixed with the main yarn, it isn't quite shiny enough. I have made a corset using recycled wool sweater knit as the outer layer, and love the forgiveness it has for turn of cloth issues, as it will just stretch over whatever form it needs to.
• Foil-printed Lycra knit – comes in amazing crazy patterns (think ice dancer costumes)

I ultimately chose the lamé in a red metallic with black warp threads, because it is shiny (I am a bit of a crow/raven/other animal that is attracted to shiny things) and I can envision it on my friend.

I also picked up a back-up piece of what the store called metallic taffeta in bronze, which has a more transparent look to it without actually being sheer, and more shine. It doesn't have the black warp, instead using a clear nylon thread .

Supplies

• Sharp scissors. (Metallic fabrics tend to dull scissors faster than other fabrics, so be prepared to sharpen them.)
• Machine needle on the smaller size, such as 8-10.
• Lamé
• Coutil
• Spiral and flat boning
• Thread
• Pins
• Fraycheck (optional)

Pattern Selection

I chose to make a special pattern for this project, thinking that the fewer seams there were, the less fraying of cut edges would occur. I started with the Foundations Revealed tutorial and drafted it with 5 pieces for a small bust. I then took pieces #1, #3, #4, and #5, and cut them horizontally at the waistline.  Pieces #3, #4, and #5 upper sections got joined together to create one larger piece instead of three small pieces. The top portion of piece #1 will remain as is. The bottom portion of piece #1 gets joined to piece #2, and the bottom portions of #3, #4, and #5 get joined together and then attached to piece #2.

Of course, add seam allowances where needed after all the modifications are complete. This change made part of the pattern end up on the bias. In the final product, I am not sure if that is what is causing the waist wrinkle, or if it is simply that I didn't spend enough time perfecting the pattern for the model. With this pattern modification, there is no curve over the hip, as the edges are joined together as straight lines. If I had taken more time, I would have manipulated the pattern to have darts from the waistline towards the hips to create more curve, but my friend isn't super curvy and I thought I could get away with it. Of course, this could all be due to an inherent characteristic of the lamé.

Lamé is notorious for fraying, and one suggested solution is to treat cut edges with fraycheck. I chose instead to ensure my seam allowances were sufficient to accomodate any fraying that might occur, and be gentle and extra careful when handling the cut pieces. One thing I did notice is that if I used my rotary cutter, the blade seemed to 'push' the fabric into the cutting mat when it cut, rather than simply slicing it. Then when I'd go to move the pattern piece, it would skew and stretch out of shape as I had to pull the fibers out of the cut mark in the mat. I probably should have just used my scissors ;-)

Layout and Construction

Lamé has a nap (the shine appears different depending on the direction in which you look at it) so when laying out your pattern, make sure you are conscious of this. You might decide that you want to use this to accent certain pattern pieces, but otherwise ensure you have all the pieces laying in the same direction. Pin in the seam allowances, as pin marks may remain visible after you remove them. Alternatively, use pattern weights if you can. (The same goes for ripping out seams, by the way, as you risk having your stitching holes remaining visible). You'll need one of each piece in lamé and in coutil or your strength fabric of choice, as you need a strength layer to eliminate the stress on the delicate lamé.

I chose to quickly flatline the lamé to the coutil using long hand-basting stitches on the upper front panel. For the rest of the pieces I machine basted the layers together in the seam allowance. Make sure to allow for turn-of-cloth so the lamé layer ends up slightly larger than the coutil layer so it curves around the body.

When sewing the pattern pieces together, use pins in the seam allowances, a new sharp needle, and a small to medium stitch length. If you use a blunt or damaged needle you run the risk of pulling or snagging threads in your beautiful shiny fabric.

You can see in this picture quite clearly where the needle pierced the fabric, but in person it's not as noticeable. If I were doing this for a client, I would have spent more time trying to eliminate the needleholes, but for this, I'm okay with noting that perhaps my needle was too large. (I should mention that I had a brain blip and used a metallic needle, thinking that I needed that because I was working on metallic fabric, when in reality, a metallic needle is for using metallic threads.)

When insetting the two upper pieces into the main piece I reinforced the corner of the main piece, making sure to actually stitch exactly on the seam allowance. Then I stitched the inset piece from top edge to the corner, leaving the needle down to pivot, and continued to the edge.

I trimmed the underneath layer to about ¼" (6mm) and topstitched using stitch length of 3, both for aesthetics and extra strength. When seams in lamé are put under stress, they can tear, or have the fibers pull apart, so you want to make sure that whatever you are doing, you have enough support so there is no stress on the outer fabric.

I used a combination of external bone casings and internal bone casing strips, with in-seam channels at the center front. To create the external casings, I used a strip of coutil, and a strip of lamé that was ¼" (6mm) wider. I basted the two layers on one long side with the edges even and then pressed with a press cloth and no steam, so the long cut edges of the coutil met, and tucked the extra lamé inside the tube.

Then it was just a matter of topstitching each tube down. I stitched the unbasted side first, to secure the lamé firmly over the tube. I know there are many ways of doing this and I have in the past made complete stitched tubes, but I didn't want to risk fraying or snagging. Also, if I used the technique where you stitch the tube wrong sides together and then simply press the seam open, I was concerned that the raw edge of the lamé would stick out, because if I trimmed it enough to not stick out, it might fall apart. Even stitching them down the way I did, I still managed to get random threads coming out the edges.

When pressing this sort of fabric, I found it best to use a press cloth and no steam, on a medium setting and lots of pressure. This was the right combination to make a nice crisp crease on a fold. It takes a lot more time than pressing cotton, for sure, but the result is good. If you use too much heat, or steam, the fibers shrink and discolor. I've tried to show this in the picture below; the fabric on the left side is not pressed, but on the right you can see the change in texture caused by heat and steam.

One unforeseen benefit of this fabric is its thinness. This is especially fantastic when using it as binding on the top and bottom edges. I cut 2” (5cm) strips on the bias to create self-binding and pressed them in half lengthwise, using a press cloth and medium heat and no steam. As I usually do, I then sewed the strips on the bottom of the corset to the right side, and flipped the strip over to the wrong side. I hand stitched the folded edge to the inside for a nice clean finish. It is awesome at the front and back edges because there is little bulk, so it finished off really nicely!

TaDa!

Now, just because I could, I modified that pattern into an underbust, highback, low hip version (and didn't retoile it – hence the horrible fit) to make a second shiny corset using the metallic taffeta in bronze.

I fused the taffeta to the coutil using Wonder-Under, a heat activated fabric glue webbing.

This helped with the fraying but it is pretty impossible to curve the pieces to get the turn-of-cloth accounted for. This meant that when I sewed the pieces together there was 'bubbling' and the two fabrics unfused themselves from each other in places.

All the same construction considerations were used, and boning is inserted using in-seam channels made with seam allowances.

There is a center front casing sewn on the inside that holds two flat steels. I used the same technique for the bias binding as I did on the red one, but stitched 'in the ditch' instead of hand stitching from the rear side.

One difference I noticed between this taffeta and the previous red lamé was that the taffeta was much more slippery. It has an almost glass-like feel in its smoothness, where the lamé had a little (but still discernable) roughness to it. This roughness helped the fabric not slide around quite as much when sewing the red, versus the bronze, corset.

In conclusion, I LOVE the look of the bronze fabric! It could even be used to simulate Bronze Age armour! It was not too bad to work with, and is inexpensive. The red lamé is a bit thicker than the taffeta was, and has a more subtle shine to it, and seemed to fray more. I hope to see some of my fellow FR corsetmakers try some super sparkly fabrics in the near future!

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