De Gracieuse Corset

[theladyrebecca]

Amy Galles was wonderful enough to trace off the De Gracieuce corset pattern for me, and blow it up, so I'm going to attempt this one to begin with, and hopefully it will work out! So far, I printed out her blown up pattern, and taped the pieces together to see what it would look like. I like the shape, but a) it's super tiny, and b) it's incredibly short-waisted. So I added 3.5" of length between the waist and the bottom of the bust, and I also added at least 1-2" of width to the various pieces. I taped together this new sized up pattern to see what it would look like, and I tried to pin it to Antoinette. Obviously, it looks weird because it's paper, but I feel like the gussets are particularly strange. The front-most bust gusset seems huge, and possibly because of this, it also makes the corset want to spring away from the "body" at bust-level under the armpit. Which seems weird. Hopefully I'm assembling the pieces right!

Nevertheless, I'm tempted to actually use my enlarged paper pattern to actually cut it out and assemble it in fabric, just to see how far off it is. I really want to try Luca's thing of making the body conform to the corset, not the other way around (I think that's what he said?). That's why I wanted a really distinct shape for this era.

I'm also going to attempt it with a 15" busk. It's possibly I need a 16", but that seems like it might be too long once I sit down, and I happen to have a 15" on hand already. I'm hoping to order boning in the next couple days, so that I can really get started on this. I got a sample of the Wissner plastic whalebone and the other German plastic boning from Farthingales, but none of it is quite what Luca recommended, so I'm waiting on a couple samples to come from Hallie Larkin, since hers is Wissner as well.

Here's the pattern. If anyone else wants to try it, I'm happy to share the pdf!


And this is what my weird paper version looks like. You can see the 3.5" of length I had to add!

Comments

[theladyrebecca.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I hope that's true for this one, too.

When you mock up a corset, do you have to actually put the whole busk in?

And can you pm me your email for the pattern?

[atherleisure.livejournal.com]

I usually sew the center front closed for a mock-up. That way I don't have to deal with a busk, though I do have to deal with lacing the thing up while on my body. Then I put a couple of bones at the center front, either by making channels of the seam allowances or taping them to the corset with painters tape. (I've heard of using duct tape, but painters' tape is less sticky so I use it. Plus I always have it and am not sure we have any duct tape.)

I'll PM you with my email address. Thanks for offering to share.