New Reed Corset in Red

Every woman feels more feminine when she has pretty underwear. This thought inspired me to make another pair of bodies. My pair from 2012 are holding up beautifully, nothing needs to be replaced, but there are other styles I want to try. This pair uses a cherry wood busk I purchased several years ago down the center front, and two soft "cups" over the bust. In Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 3, Arnold describes a pair of bodies belonging to Dorothea Sabina von Neuberg. Dorothea's original pair of bodies was an ivory silk over linen and stiffened with whale bone. I do not need anything nearly as ridged so I have stuck with my reeds.Just like the effigy corset before there is a magical combination of heavy linen canvas to be covered in a decorative silk. I stuck with the basic pattern of my effigy corset because I primarily wanted to focus on the exotic bust treatment on Dorothea's stays. This pattern was elongated in the front by 1 inch compared to my previous pair of bodies. This is to accommodate the wooden busk in the center front. In the future I would be interested in carving my own busk. Most of the surviving busks from this time period are covered in small carved designs. 

There was a lot of trial and error that went into making these "cups over my bust. I am a larger busted woman, so the period "cup" measurements did not give a flattering look. The method of gauging cup size that worked the best for me was finding a soft cup, under-wire bra and tracing the shapes onto the pair of bodies.
Channels for the reeds were once again stitched using a machine. I saw no advantage to sewing the channels by hand. Each channel is approximately 3/8 of an inch wide. Prior to sewing the reed channels be sure to mark our your primary busk channel in the center front, and then your "cups."

All of my edges were bound in a powder blue silk I salvaged from a goodwill cocktail dress. I did this as an exercise in not wasting fabric. Little fabric would have been wasted at this time period because of the expense of fabric, especially imported silk. It was harder cutting my binding this way instead of using a new piece of silk. I do not recommend salvaging silk from old dresses as a fast solution, but it was cheep. Silk usually starts at $15.00 per yard, but I got this dress for $2.50. When weighing your options consider time verses money. At the time I was binding this corset I had more time than funding.
Once all of the garment pieces were sewn, stiffened, and bound, I used waxed silk thread and stitched the three pieces together. I used a whip stitch because these seams needed strength. Next I used an awl and hand worked the eyelets into the corset. The eyelets were bound in cotton embroidery floss because of the wide availability. Silk would work just as well and be the more period correct material for binding these eyelets. In the future, I strongly recommend working eyelets on supportive garments like these over metal lacing rings. The rings add strength to the holes, with little bulk. Evidence of this technique can been seen on Eleanora of Toledo's funeral dress, also in Patterns of Fashion 3. Arnold notes the corrosion stains at the lacing points where there once were lacing rings.

Final verdict on the new pair of bodies.
I have only worn it a few times so far but it is comfortable. I cannot lace myself because of where this pair of bodies laces and the wooden busk. Those who lace me in have requested i get points for my laces because these eyelets are smaller than those worked over the lacing rings. I cannot bend at the waist because of the busk either. It is a very different feeling that my other effigy pair of bodies with reeds and spring steel. The softer cups are nice when you do not want as much cleavage showing in your neckline.


If you have any questions please leave them in comments below or send me a private message. I would like to thank my Husband for taking the time out of his busy midterm schedule to take the two pictures of me wearing my red pair of bodies, and for lacing me in. I would also like to thank Melissa Jones for helping me to draft the original effigy corset pattern I altered to create this pair of bodies. For the curious minds out there, below is a link to my initial post about my reed effigy corset. Thank you for reading!

http://tudorrevolution.blogspot.com/2012/08/effigy-corset-with-reeds.html