Linen and Lining: 1875 Black Victorian Corset

Isn't she gorgeous?? I can't get over how beautiful the corsets of the mid-late Victorian era are. They have such amazing flossing, laces and trim. The craftsmanship of the stitching, albeit with machines at this stage, just delights me. And as usual, this admiration creates a desire to own a pair myself, and the experience the ins and outs of the actual making of one.

This was my inspiration:

1875 Symington corset in lasting, cotton and hessian

It has created such a beautiful geometric lattice of stitches, which is just lovely and takes a plain black fabric to a work of art.

I took the pattern for the Khaki Corded Corset from the Jill Salen book "Corsets", which is actually dated 1890-1900. However she herself says this corset is very similar to the above corset, and there is very little difference in the styling besides the hip gussets that I can see. It's like a combination/hybrid of the Khaki Corded and the Pretty Housemaid!

The stack of imported coutil was sitting there, calling, so this project was going to use a beautiful rich black brocade with gold spots bought from Vena Cava, UK. As I wanted the gold spots to feature, I used black thread to sew this up, rather than the gold/yellow thread featured above. I started looking into which busks/eyelets etc I would need, and quickly realised that the only option was to Go Gold. I wanted a straight busk like the above, rather than a spoon busk, which fortunately came in gold, so ordered this, gold grommets, some steel boning and black lacing from Sew Curvy, UK.

Cue impatient waiting.

In the meantime I could scan and print off the pattern from "Corsets". I am still struggling with figuring out easy ways to stretch patterns width and length ways to fit my sizing requirements, but in the meantime the old cut-and-stick works for adjusting sizing.

Well, I thought it worked, but in the end my sizing was way off and I had to adjust seam allowances to accommodate. One day I'll figure it out.

The pattern called for four bust gussets and four hip gussets, all fully corded. This was somewhat of a challenge as it takes a bit of guess work to account for shrinkage: I like to use the method of sewing the cording into the fabric, keeping the back fabric tight to ensure the bumps are on the outside for maximum visual impact. This work absolutely killed my neck and shoulders as it involved so many hours of closely watching stitches on the machine. An hour a night was all I could stand before the heat pack came out and that was me for the evening.

Finally I was challenged to decide on flossing designs and so I used a gold top-stitching thread for great visibility, and a rather open design rather than a satin embroidery finish. I'm happy with it, though it certainly improved as I got further into the project.

It was finished with a gold braid along the top and some black lace. The fit is great, and it looks and feels amazing. I do have wrinkling issues at the waist, and I know how I can improve that next time, but for now it is a great corset that will cover 1875-1900 quite happily. The measurements were about 34-25-35, none of which are my actual measurements but the style allowed me to add to bust and hip and take away from waist pretty easily. I'm looking forward to trying out some other of the Symington collection corsets over the next few years!