How to make a corset - Foundations Revealed

How to Make A Corset

If you want to learn how to make a corset - a real corset - Foundations Revealed is going to rock your world.

Whether you're an enthusiastic amateur or a seasoned pro, this site will bring you all the corset making instruction you've always wished you could find on the Internet, but that no-one was willing to reveal.

Let us encourage you to have a go - the very best way to learn how to make a corset is to jump in and do it!

1. Picking a corset pattern

A great corset starts with a great PATTERN. You can either

• Buy a corset pattern in a store, or
• Use our free tutorial to make a pattern from your measurements.

2. How to make a corset fit you

You need to make sure the pattern fits you before cutting fabric. A corset is a very close-fitting garment, and the trick to looking stunning in the finished corset is to ensure that it really, really fits. If you've bought a pattern, you need to do more than just cut out your size - shop-bought patterns, in our experience, tend to come out waaaay wrong, and anyway, one size 16 person is very different from another, so why would the same corset pattern fit both of them?

If you make your corset pattern using our free drafting tutorial, it'll already be made exclusively for your shape, but here's how to make a shop-bought corset pattern fit you beautifully:

1. Take your measurements - here's our free guide, which I use with my clients.
2. Measure across all the corset pieces at the fullest part of the bust, at the waist and at the hips, and add up the width of the pieces so that you know the bust, waist and hip measurements of the pattern.
3. Take away the seam allowances. When you sew the pieces together, you won't sew them right at the very edges, you'll sew a little way inside the edge. The pattern notes will tell you how far within the edges to sew - this bit at the edge is called the "seam allowance". Count how many seam allowances there are around the pattern, and take them off the pattern measurements so that you're only counting the part of the corset that's actually going to smooth around your body.
4. Compare these new pattern measurements to your own measurements, and you might be quite surprised at how different they are! Adjust the edges of the pattern pieces so that they measure the same as your own measurements. Two rules for doing this: one, adjust the curvy edges, but leave the straight ones as they are. Two, don't make the whole adjustment at one edge. Try to spread out the changes over all the pattern piece edges, so that each one only changes a little bit.

Now you're ready to cut fabric!

3. Fabrics and materials

Here's the list of things you need in full:

• Fabric - strong, non-stretchy fabric such as artist's canvas is ideal. The "real thing" is coutil, but that's expensive - if you're looking at how to make a corset for the first time, you need a fabric that's cheap, easy to get hold of, and that won't matter if you mess it up. Later, you'll find out that denim has its disadvantages for corsetmaking, but for your very first go, I recommend buying a pair of non-stretch jeans at a charity or Goodwill store and cutting them up to make your first corset. The better the fabric, the better the results, but for a first attempt, keep it simple.
• Boning - again, for a first attempt, many people swear by cable ties, but if you go to a specialist online corsetmaking store you can find the steel bones that are the cornerstone of a great corset. (You can always re-use them in your next corset.)
• Eyelets - these can be bought at haberdashery departments or online corsetmaking stores. Make sure you get good quality, two-piece eyelets, as the one-piece ones rip out easily under the kind of pressure you'll put them through in a corset.
• A lace - ribbon or cord, around 5m or 5 yards should be plenty for any size.
• Busk - the pair of steel bars with hooks and eyes that go at the centre front of the corset. These can be bought on Ebay (look in the "Sewing" category) or at online corsetmakers' stores. They cost a few dollars, but are worth the effort - it's a pain to completely lace or unlace a corset each time you put it on or take it off, and the steel helps ensures a smooth line over the front.
• Bias binding - the strip of fabric to finish the top and bottom edge. Find some at a haberdashery store or make your own with a bias binding maker, also from a haberdasher's.
• Thread - good quality sew-all thread.
• A sewing machine - don't try to make your first corset by hand. Even seasoned pros consider hand-making a corset to be seriously hardcore!

4. Putting it all together

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About the authors

Working as a professional corsetmaker, bridal designer, costume maker and teacher has enabled Cathy Hay and her team of writers and contributors to identify the problems faced by those who wish to learn how to make a corset - a real corset, and a really great corset.

Importantly, she discovered that it may not be the makers themselves who cause their creations to fail, but rather a lack of communication: experienced makers believe they must guard their "secrets" in order to stay in business, and new makers start out believing that they must learn everything alone by trial and error, wasting valuable time, money and effort.

Foundations Revealed^TM closes the gap between these two groups by sharing information on fine, professional quality corset making with a worldwide online audience. We pay our writers so that these busy professionals have the time and incentive to show you what you really want to know in step-by-step detail, and subscribers contribute to those costs so that we can produce a new feature every single week. (Each article, feature, class and tutorial is an in-depth, detailed study of around 2,000 words, with around 25 photos, ensuring that you learn all the nuts and bolts of how to make a corset that you've been searching for).

Not only will your small monthly subscription give you access to these new features - you'll also have access during the month to everything we've ever published since our beginning in October 2009 - that's around 150 in-depth classes, tutorials, articles and workshops, all available right here at your computer.

Click to read a selection of eight of our articles, free. 

A few examples of our specialised beginners' articles:

Hit the menu tab above marked "Basics" to see our full range of articles that are specially designed to get you started right. Meanwhile, under our other menu tabs you'll find corsetmaking articles that run right through from beginner, to intermediate, to professional level, pushing the boundaries of modern corsetmaking, working out how complex Victorian corset patents worked and giving you advice on running your own corsetry business.

All you need is a Paypal account, meaning that you have complete control - you can cancel any time through your own Paypal. (This keeps us on our toes producing features that offer the very best and clearest how-tos, ensuring that your work becomes the very best and that you stick around for more!) We make sure that we're giving you what you need with regular surveys and polls, so whether your sticking point is fitting plus sizes, drafting, getting boning channels around curves smoothly, or whether you want patterns from real Victorian corsets and flossing (corset embroidery) ideas directly from the past, we can give you what you need.

For you, this means that you become more confident, your drafting, fitting, sewing and finishing start to fly headlong towards the finest professional standards, and you get to realise your corsetmaking dreams with the closest thing that the 21st century can offer to a true apprenticeship from Victorian masters. All this for a lot less than the average college course, and we even offer a no-quibble money-back guarantee - if you're not completely satisfied, you can cancel any time during your first month and receive a full refund.

By re-kindling the culture of apprenticeship in a modern, technological age, we can return to a world in which true craftsmanship is once again loved, appreciated and shared successfully for the greatest advantage to everyone.

If you're into corsetmaking and you know anything at all about our award-winning sister site on historical clothing, Your Wardrobe Unlock'd^TM, you'll know all about how we work. Come with us, and enter a world in which truly outstanding work is not only possible, but achievable...