One week to Dr Sketchy!
To get you excited about it, here are some photos of Shell in the nougat corset from the undergarment photoshoot at Emily’s.
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Rococo undergarments & Rococo art
My Dr Sketchy talk is themed around how artists were inspired by undergarments. I’m starting with the 18th century and rococo undergarments.
Of course, 18th century undergarments aren’t technically undergarments, since chemises, stays and petticoats could all be worn as outerwear!
So the artworks that I am being inspired by to stage my tableaux for the talk includes both intimate boudoir scenes with real underwear and genre scenes with romanticised peasant women in stays and petticoats.
First intimate boudoir scenes, as epitomised by Boucher’s La Toilette:
Francoise Boucher, La Toilete, 1742
Ooh! Stockings! And frilly petticoats! And bed jackets, and maybe a hint of stays. And sexy slippers!
On a much naughtier note, we have Pater’s “Mme. de Bouvillon Tempts Fate by Asking Ragotin to Search for a Flea” (which has got to be the best name for a painting ever, and must be a reference to something)
Jean-Baptiste Pater, Mme. de Bouvillon Tempts Fate by Asking Ragotin to Search for a Flea
Mme. de Bouvillon appears to have opened her robe to reveal her jumps, which are barely containing her bounty. Oh dear!
The genre scenes are a little sweeter and less saucy:
François Boucher,Young Country Girl Dancing, Art Gallery of Ontario
Boucher’s dancing peasant girl is improbably pretty, clean, and prettily dressed. I love how her petticoat shows beneath her skirt, and all the bows on her stays.
Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (attributed), Peasant Girl
Vigee Le Brun’s peasant girl is even more romanticised than Bouchers. I love her front lacing stays and the off the shoulder chemise. Besides, the red petticoat is so lovely and vivid.
Watteau also painted dancing peasants in stay bodices:
Antoine Watteau, La Danse Champetre
The one in the red stays appears to have attached sleeves, and once again she has the all important apron.
Even Fragonard, the master of elegantly overdressed women, painted a mother in very unstructured stays:
Fragonard, The Good Mother
Cording is evil (#3)
Cording is evil.
After pintucks, and the Briar Rose Corset, cording makes #3 evilness.
I’m making an 1890s corded corset. It’s based on a pattern in Jill Salen’s Corsets: Historical Patterns and Techniques.
The pattern is kinda weird and insane. Look at my pattern pieces:
1890s corded corset pattern
Starting from the centre back on the right, it looks totally normal. Basic princess seam, basic side back princess seam, basic side front princess seam, and then you have your….what the heck is that!?!
The front piece with bust insets
That, dear readers, is the front piece, with a set in bust.
The problem with the set in bust is that 1) it gets set into a 3.5cm opening in the front piece (and I don’t know if you have ever measured one breast, but mine isn’t 3.5cm across!), 2) the original corset was sized for someone very short, with a very large cup size, so needed a lot of resizing, 3), resizing bust cups is horrible and tricky and 4) once you have figured out all the fitting issues, actually setting in a double bust inset isn’t easy.
This is what the set in bust looks like when it is done. Weird aye?
But before I get to the setting in the bust bit, I had to sew the aforementioned evil cording.
But first I should tell you about fabric.
I’m using a gorgeous black silk satin recycled from an obi for the outer of my corset, a dark pink vintage cotton for my lining, and obi lining cotton for the interior support.
The recycled obi silk satin - such amazing quality silk!
The interior cotton, and the dark pink lining
I sewed my cording between the black silk and the stiff obi cotton.
Basically every single piece of the corset excepting the front piece is fully corded. That’s a LOT of cording. My corset is corrugated.
Corrugated corseting
To sew the cording, I marked the centre cording line in each pattern piece with chalk, and then sewed a line of stitching along that line. Then I used the zipper foot to sew a cord snuggly up against the line of stitching to start my cording.
Sewing down a line of cording with the zipper foot
Additional lines of cording get smashed up against the started cording line. I would maneuver the fabric with my left hand, and use my right index fingernail to push the cord up against the stitching and press in a crease to sew along, keeping the cording nice and tight and even.
Pushing the cord up against its fellows with my fingernail
And every three cording lines or so I would sigh and come up with a new creative not-actually-a-swear word and wonder why I did this to myself.
But for all that evilness, the corset is almost done, so I’ll show you more progress pictures in just a day or two!