I am familiar with 17th and 18th century stays, but Victorian era is new to me. I have two quick questions:

1. Why do Victorian corsets have external boning channels rather than inner ones like stays? for me, internal boning is really easy and my preferred method.

2. Laughing Moon's Dore vs Silverado: what are the differences other than the bust gussets? at some point I'm going to attempt a Victorian ensemble using some TV patterns in my stash but not really sure which corset to go with.

Hi all,

I'm having some problems understanding 18th century stay patterns regarding the waistline. Is it directly at the top of the tabs, or is it slightly above it? Some sources say it's at the top of the tabs and some pictures prove that as well:

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I completed my first mock up a little while ago. I made it pretty sturdy so it can be worn at least a few times.
Someone here advised me to test drive my mock up to feel first hand what I want from the corset and what I am looking for in a corset. This was good advice.

My mock up is very short above the waist, it ends halfway between waist and bra band. I chose that design because I thought it would increase mobility (and it does) but I mistakenly thought it would look equally good on me as it does on a very slim 50's model.
Another reason I wanted a corset that didn't end up underbust was because I feared the apparent widening of the shoulders I had seen with some (not all) commercial underbust corsets I had tried on.

And I want to talk about that a little, since I think there should be a way around that.
Has anyone else experienced seeing their shoulders being pushed up and out (sideways) when wearing an underbust corset?

Is this caused by certain corsets squeezing back muscles and/or shoulderblades up?
If so, because I don't see edwardian photographs sporting women with pushed up shoulders, could this be remedied by allowing more room at the top of the corset to avoid squeezing things up and out?

Hello,
I'm having trouble with making corsets that support the bust. I have no photos to show, so I tried to illustrate what I think is happening. As the corset cinches in the waist, fat and flesh are displaced upwards to the underbust. This roll of fat pushes the corset away from the body, leaving a gap between the underbust and the corset and resulting in no support for the bust. My friend's corset I made for her wedding had that problem, and we found that lacing the corset tighter allowed for the support, but resulted in a lot of back-fat. This is all from self-drafted patterns, as I am not at a place where I can purchase any. Being male, I have limited knowledge of bust support and cannot practice/test on myself as I lack endowment in the bust area, so any insight and/or recommendations are very greatly appreciated!



Another issue I have is the waist tape. Even when I use coutil (purchased from Britex in San Francisco, if that matters) I can see the waist tape indentations on the outside of the corset. It seems as though the fabric is trying to stretch at the waist but the waist tape is not allowing it to at that area, so you see the indentation. Granted, I've only ever tried making single-layered corsets, or double layer (fashion + strength fabric). Is there any way to combat this as well?

Thank you very much.

I'm looking for someone who can create a custom corset for me, however what I want is a little unusual. I have scoliosis and corsets have helped with pain relief a lot in the past. I've recently come into a little bit of money and would love to find someone who can create at least one, but possibly up to 4 corsets for me. They would sort of fill the role of a back brace, although I'm not looking for something that has the same medical re-shaping stuff that a scoliosis back brace has. I would like something that is an overbust and can be worn under clothes (so no frills etc). I'd like it to basically just be a tube that provides somewhat equal support all over, rather than something that cinches in the waist like a victorian corset or similar does. Having something where the lower stomach is supported/brought in might be useful if that's possible. It might be useful with the way my back is shaped, but is certainly not necessary. I've thought about trying to make my own corset to meet this criteria since it's so different than what most corsetiers seem to make, but I'm not very confident in my ability to sit in front of a sewing machine/table for the length of time it would take to create. It would probably take me a year if I tried to do it on my own given how often I need to change position etc. Please ask if I've not been clear enough and you'd like more information about the type of design I have in my head.

Does anyone know of someone who might be comfortable making something like this? I've e-mailed a few corsetiers, but have not had any response yet. My guess is that there are a couple of factors working against me 1) mentioning scoliosis often makes people nervous 2) maybe they don't have time to devote to something so unique?

I would be really grateful for any suggestions! Thanks in advance!

A bit of backstory;
I'm trying my hand at cosplay mid june. My boyfriend is dragging me to an anime convention for a whole weekend in june, location The Hague in the Netherlands.
I have my eye on cosplaying Emma from "victorian romance emma", particularly her early edwardian outfit at the end of the series.
Heres a picture https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/51/9c/0f/519c0f6bdfdc000d573fd025fd9ad131.jpg

That lead me a thought and two questions.
I will probably need to keep the petticoat from riding up and twisting about, I saw petticoat hooks on the web but how do they work?
And how do I keep my overskirt's waistband in the right position with the front lower than the back? Will it naturally follow the corset waistline (which is the correct one) or will it attempt to go horizontal and parallel to the ground?

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I'm looking at the clover straight awl and tapered awl. Anybody here used both of them? It looks like the tapered one could be better, but I'd love to hear what others think.

I had previously posted that I wanted to make make very short corset (similar to a waspie even) here http://corsetmakers.livejournal.com/2172309.html
I had decided on a construction method with the help of the community members and I was ready to move to the pattern phase.

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No decisions have been made at this time. This is an open comment post about the possibility of moving the community (and closing our LJ doors) or mirroring the community (and leaving posting access at both LJ and DW).

Where do you prefer to post and read, these days? Would you continue to use the community if it moved over completely?

Please let me know your thoughts.

ETA: Why would we do this? As of a few days ago, the LJ servers are located in Russia, which means everything posted to LJ is no longer covered by US laws (including data protection and freedom of speech). Many people are uncomfortable with the change and are leaving LJ completely.

What is Dreamwidth? DW started eight years ago as a fork of LJ's open-source code (basically a duplicate, so the posting/community/friending structure is very similar to LJ). Since then they have made many changes and improvements. DW is free and sells no advertising - all of their revenue comes from paid accounts of various types. DW can import a whole LJ (including comments), for those who want to back up their LJs. You can also set up an auto-crosspost from DW to LJ, if you have both and want your entries to show up in both places.