(Credit to Katherine/Koshka-the-Cat, who heard it from Sewaddicted on LJ) The V&A is coming out with a new book in their “Fashion in Detail” series — this one is focusing on underwear: Underwear: Fashion in Detail! According to the book description, it will include examples from the 16th century to the present. This is SUPER exciting, as the previous books (Historical Fashion in Detail, and Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail) are amazing resources for seeing really close up details on fabrics, stitches, embroidery, trims, and more. They’re porn! It won’t be released until Oct. 1, 2010, but it gives us something to live for.
If you’d like to support this site AND buy it from Amazon, you can click on the link below and then add it to your wishlist and/or preorder it.
Also, Burnley & Trowbridge (the fabulous VA store that caters to 18th century costumers) is offering two workshops in Northern California! One will be on quarterback gowns (robes a l’anglaise), the other on the Brunswick. Both will be taught by Janea Whitacre, the mantua-maker from Colonial Williamsburg; I took her saque workshop and it was amazing how much she knew and how much I learned. I’ve signed up for the Brunswick workshop — sadly (okay, not TOO sadly) I’ll be in England for the first weekend!
But not a lot of posting! Mostly it’s because I have been slowly slowly working on binding my 1780s stays, but also because I’ve been working on Michael’s 16th century trunkhose (but they keep seeming to stay in a not-excitingly-photographed condition – update soon!).
I think red is my color of the moment, because that’s the theme here…
First, I made the Costume Close-Up cloak for the Lumieres seaside stroll. I was worried about freezing to death, so I took some lightweight red wool, fulled it, and made up the cloak — which I have to report is SUPER easy, because of the fulling… you don’t have to finish any of the edges! I debated and debated what to line the hood with — I wanted to do something solid so it would work for any era (because how often do I make cloaks?), but the only thing in the stash that worked was a green & red 18th c.-style indienne print. Oops! Guess it’s not going to work for 16th century! Also, a report — according to the book, the hood is cut large to accomodate the big hairstyles of the period. Well, obviously they don’t define “big” the same way I do — there is no WAY that hood was going to fit over my hair! So I’ll have to make another version at some point with a bigger hood, and this time of some heavier wool so it will work for REALLY cold events. Luckily, although we expected rain, we had a beautiful day, so it worked out just fine.
Next, I went to the GBACG Duchess of Devonshire tea, which Cynthia and I organized. We had planned one tea (obviously), but it sold out so quickly we added a second date the following weekend! I didn’t want to stress myself out by trimming my hat at the last second, so planned to wear something else… but then got the wild hair the night before to wear the hat. Silly costumer! So I put some burgundy ribbon and a burgundy feather on it, all with straight pins, and called it good. I had experimented with using green ribbon, as in the original fashion plate, but it just looked like a Christmas hat.
I finished binding my 1780s stays in time to wear to tea #2 (ie late the night before). I really wanted to wear them because — hey, they’re new! Plus I wanted to find out how comfortable they’d be. I handsewed ALL of the binding, top and bottom, both sides, because I really wanted it to look good. And while I’m not 100% happy with it, I think it’s my best binding job so far. The petersham worked well and I think it looks good — I was worried it would scream “petersham!” but I think it just looks like a ribbed ribbon. I did discover some cosmetic changes I want to make when I do version #2, mostly that the side tabs are shorter than the back tabs, and I’d like to even that all out. Also, I don’t have a back picture, but I want to make the line of the straps at the top back of the corset merge more. I’ll post really REALLY final photos once I have the right color ribbon on hand to lace them with — I had to just use what I had on hand, which meant the straps are tied on with black, and the back got laced 1/2 with burgundy and 1/2 with green! I wore it under my chemise dress, which is the only dress I had that (because it’s gathered) fit — all the rest of my dresses are too small in the bust and too big in the waist to fit!
I haven’t yet posted my photos from the first tea, but I’ll do so very soon! I do have photos from the Devonshire tea #2 up. Both teas were lots of fun — yummy food, good conversation, and we had lots of fun playing forfeits!
As the Duchess of Devonshire, with Lady Bess Foster (Cynthia). Photo credit Sally Norton.
Photo credit Kim Yasuda
With Diana and Katherine. Photo credit Kim Yasuda.
So my plastic German/Wissner boning finally showed up from Farthingale’s Canada, which I’m using in this version for the very short vertical pieces (mostly the tab pieces on the side front piece — can’t buy pre-cut boning quite short enough), and the slightly narrower than 1/4″ boning (5 mm I think?) for the horizontal bones. Oh, and 1/2″ for the separately cased horizontal bones. I bought enough so that I can bone my version 2.0, when I do my handsewn/linen version.
Report on the German plastic boning (more reports forthcoming as I work with it and wear it): it’s definitely sturdier than the crappy Joann’s plastic boning, but it’s also DEFINITELY flexible. I can’t imagine using it without using some steel to reinforce.
So of course I got distracted from Michael’s costume — nothing is more interesting than your OWN sewing! I stuck all the boning in, and machine sewed around all the edges. I sewed in one side of the separately cased 1/2″ horizontal plastic bone, and thought I’d better do one more try on, just to be sure that the placement was going to work. The horizontal boning (both the narrow – there are 4 rows of that) and the wider bone definitely seem to curve the stays even more, although I would say the difference seems slight. If you’re looking at the pics below, I have the 1/2″ horizontal bone in on the left side (ie my right). It didn’t do anything WONKY tho, so I’ll go ahead and put it in on the other side.
I also finally patterned the strap, which is coming in to the front at a slightly weird angle. The original pattern has the strap sewn to the front and laced in back; I’ve seen this on a few other pairs of stays, but it just reads as weird to me, so I’m flipping it. I’m not sure if it’s because I changed the width of some pieces, but the strap is fitting well but not coming straight down over the shoulder — more at an angle; mostly I can see this when I curve the end of the strap. I decided to go with it and not try to do anything funky, because hey, if it works don’t fix it, right?
I also wanted to test out the petersham I’m going to use to bind & cover the seams. I looked HIGH and LOW for some kind of silk ribbon that looked like the silk ribbon I’ve seen on extant stays. Yes yes, “all” stays were bound with leather or linen tape — actually, no they weren’t. Higher end stays were often bound with what most sources call “silk ribbon”; and I’m sorry, I’m just not excited about snoozeriffic natural colored linen tape (can’t even find it in white!), and leather is squicky to me (sad critters don’t need to die for my costumes). I looked all through the 18cwoman list, all over the web, every fabric/trim store I could find, and it doesn’t seem like anyone has a better option than petersham — because the ribbon needs to have some real weight to it to stand up to its job. From what I can tell in the images of extant stays that I’ve found, it looks like silk taffeta or possible faille — the pink 17th c. stays (yes, a century early) from the V&A that are on the cover of Historical Fashion in Detail have a very ribbed faille look. The only currently available possibility that had the right look was vintage (in order to get the right fiber content — silk or rayon) seam binding, so I bought a little bit off Etsy — but it’s SUPER lightweight, so that’s a no go. Plus it seems like the widest available is 5/8″, too narrow for binding.
So yeah, back to the rayon petersham I bought forever ago! The plus is that I was able to get both narrow (for covering the seams) and wider (for binding) in a matching color. And I’m happy enough to go with rayon, since silk seems totally not doable. I want the look of the 1770s red V&A stays (also in Historical Fashion in Detail), so I went with ivory colored ribbon. The narrowest I could find was 3/8″, so I held that up to the stays to see how it would work — definitely too wide. So I folded it in half and hand stitched some lengths of it, and it looks right to me!
Wow, I can yammer about piddly things, can’t I?
And no, I’m not going to split the tabs until I’m 100% ready to bind the bottom — just don’t want to mess with the fraying!
All the boning is in; 1/2″ horizontal boning only on left (my right) side
Lethargy (it’s winter!) and CADD! They are distracting.
I finally ordered boning — thanks to everyone for your suggestions and input! Unfortunately it looks like not many places carry the extra hard boning (I’ve only found it at Farthingale’s — not even Greenberg & Hammer!) — Corsetmaking.com has it, but they had fewer lengths in stock vs. Vogue Fabrics. And nobody seems to have the German plastic boning readily available — from Vogue, you have to order 100 meter rolls, Corsetmaking.com has to special order it, Greenberg & Hammer has “European” boning but I’m not sure if that’s the Wissner/German stuff (and I’m sorry, but in this day and age I refuse to have to make a phone call to verify that kind of info and/or make an order. I promise to start using them when they start doing online ordering).
Phew! So I decided to order my steel from Vogue, and then I’m going to get some plastic boning (for the horizontal bones in this corset, and enough to do my next version of these stays, which will be the hand sewn/German plastic boned version) from Farthingale’s Canada (expensive, I know, but I can get it by the meter or 12 meter roll there!).
So the boning showed up, I sewed my pieces together, I fray checked my edges, and I got to put it on. And WOW, do I LOVE this shape. I put one of my 18th c. dresses on over it, and that confirmed what I had thought — I have a FAR more bowed bust vs. my old pair (which I think are the Diderot stays, or something close — the pattern came from a workshop at Costume College). I feel like the prow of a ship (in the best possible way), and I don’t even have any of the horizontal boning in yet! The hard steel is SO supportive, it’ll be a real change when I do the version with the plastic boning (and will be interesting to compare).
The one thing is they are feeling REALLY tight around the waist. I measured the waist and compared with my recently made 16th c. corset, which is SUPER comfortable, and there’s only a .5″ difference. So I’m debating whether I should let it out a bit at the waist, or wear them around the house for a few hours and see if things stretch & settle? I haven’t yet cut my tabs, do you think that would make much difference? One thing is I only did lacing holes to just past the waist, and you can see how it’s pulling open in back. I think I will go back and make more lacing holes so that it goes the full length of the CB, and just sew over the offset spiral lace hole that I currently have in there. I’m not sure if straightening the back out will make the waist even tighter or not, however!
Oh yes, and jeans and a t-shirt ARE the best possible things to wear when trying on your stays! And at some point I really should pattern some straps, shouldn’t I?
