#dress history
Making a 1906 Corset (Part 3/5)
I just want to start this post by saying do as I say rather than do as I do. I am incredibly impatient as it seems so I decided to just screw everything and jump right in and wing it. But the correct way to do it would be to make yet another mockup (or fix the existing one, whatever works!) or, if you’re lucky enough and your mockup fit perfectly by now, you’re good to go and start sewing the corset.
In my last post I was describing issues I had where the corset fit me, but didn’t have that effect that Edwardian corsets usually do. So what I did now was, I reprinted the paper pattern and went up a size in the bust and hip area, leaving the waist as it was. I would much rather pad it and have the shape that I wanted than have it be closer in size to my actual body. I know it probably doesn’t make sense, but Edwardian corsets were kind of made with that logic. Edwardians knew that their body wasn’t perfectly hourglass shaped (or s-bend shaped) so they mainly focused on the waist and kept bust and hips to scale in proportion and padded out what needed to be padded. Like this, it gave the illusion of a tinier waist because the rest was simply bigger in comparison.
Long story short, I skipped the mockup this time as I, like I said, am a very impatient person and frankly could not be bothered to make that. Obviously, I’m only doing that when I’m making my own garments, I would never skip this when I’m making someone else’s. So I cut it out of my cream twill and am now fixing the markings (half of the pieces don’t have markings because I cut two panels at once if that makes sense?).
Then I stitched all the pieces together and inserted the front busk. I made sure to cut four panels of the busk panel and the back panel to be able to insert the busk and have some added support in the back.
Then it was time to secure the busk. I still cannot understand how people machine stitch busks. I tried it this time and, surprise, it didn’t work. I didn’t break the needle this time but the stitches were very uneven, so I ended up hand stitching it. My seams are somewhat uneven as well but that’s okay. I feel like the front is acceptable for my skill level but the back is very uneven, I don’t really know what happened there. I even used one of those rotary cutter spike thingies that mark your seams and maybe I used it wrong but I wasn’t really able to follow the markings as they disappeared after a few minutes.
Then I made the boning channels and started inserting the boning. For the first time I used synthetic whalebone and I’m genuinely surprised. It’s pretty similar in texture to zip ties but it’s slightly sturdier, though much easier to work with. I could easily cut it with my fabric scissors and sand it. I used water blocking tape to secure the edges so they weren’t as sharp and inserted them.
This is what it looks like now -
It’s still lacking a few boning channels for the spring steel boning but I forgot to add them as I don’t have it right now, I’m going to the fabric store tomorrow to get it. But overall, I’m super impressed with the shape and I really hope it fits now! It’s crazy to me how small the waist looks even though it’s not. I knew this in theory but it’s mindblowing seeing it with my own eyes.
Sewing Medieval Bathhouse Dress
I’m a big boob person and for me bras have always been very uncomfortable. They never support enough even with the metallic wire support as the elastic strap is not secure enough and that wire curve is also just uncomfortable. My shoulders are also always aching because of the pressure put on shoulders. But no bras is even more uncomfortable especially if I have to do anything else than sitting. Which is why I have been considering testing out historical options ever since I got into historical sewing.
When it comes to historical sewing (and to some extent sewing in general) I’m still a noob and so I have been quite intimidated by stays and corsets and I’ve figured I’ll start with medieval supportive garments, like kirtle, as they are much simpler. Then I saw the videowhere Morgan Donner made a bathhouse dress and I immediately wanted to test it out too.
Some history
Bathhouse dress is a garment that appears around 14th to 16th century in central Europe, mostly around Bohemia, Austria and German states and their vicinity. Perhaps the most famous finding of this garment is the Lengberg Castle Bra found in Austria.
It’s often called medieval bra because it has cups like bra. I think that’s somewhat misleading as it was a full dress and this is just fragments of the dress. There’s theory that there’s only this left because the larger continuous pieces of linen were cut off and used for some other garment. The dress was quite different from shift, the usual loose undergarment that would be used under supportive kirtle around most of Europe at the time. It was sleeveless and tailored with lacing, usually on the side. The reason it’s often called bathhouse dress is that there’s a lot of depictions of it in bathhouse use, especially in Bohemia, and these depictions are sometimes referred as Bohemian bathhouse babes.
All of these types of garments didn’t have cups like this example from 1389 Bohemia, and there were a lot of different designs. There’s different shaped bodices, some had waist seem, some didn’t. In German the garment with cups was called breastbag at the time. In the literary mentions there was often degrading tone when talking about it, and it seemed that the writers at least thought women who used breastbag were “showing off”. When have men not complained about women’s fashion in a patriarchal society? Perhaps with the other designs there wasn’t similar derision. The writings and some other depictions of the garment suggest that it was used more generally as an undergarment and not just for bathhouse. Which would make sense as it would seen uncharacteristic for Middle Ages to tailor a supporting garment (not cheep) just to use in bathhouses.
Here’s a potter wearing similar garment with different design from late 15th century Austria.
Another one from mid 15th century Austria of a woman putting clothes on and obviously wearing the dress as undergarment.
Here’s a German example from late 15th century of a woman wearing it as a nightgown, which shift was also used for.
The sewing part
If you want a tutorial, go and watch that Morgan Donner video linked in the beginning, I’m not a good source on sewing, especially historical.
I wanted to make my version of the dress fairly historical, but I wasn’t too concerned with making in exactly right as it’s purpose is for daily use and not historical costuming. I hand-sewed it with historical techniques though, but the patterning part was quite chaotic and I basically came up with it as I went so there ended up being some weirdness in finishings as I didn’t plan far enough.
So here’s how it turned out. I very intentionally made it much shorter than it should be. Most depictions have it reach half calf. I was making it for daily use and not historical costuming and I have a lot of knee length skirts, so I wanted it short enough for that. I actually made the bodice and skirt into separate pieces that are just loosely whipstitched together so I can use them both alone too, especially the bodice with trousers.
The shape of the bodice isn’t historical. The cleavage goes fairly high and is fairly straight in most of the historical examples (especially with the cups). Even the Lengberg bra originally had crochet covering the chest area. But again that wouldn’t have fitted so well with a lot of my modern clothing, and my purpose wasn’t historical recreation.
As I was talking about the pretty weird finishings, here you can see them. The result isn’t very neat, but it’s fine.
I have been wearing this now a couple of months and I’m in love with it. It’s much more supportive while being also so much more comfortable. The lacing on the side distributes the force around the waist, so it doesn’t put nearly as much pressure on my shoulders. It’s made entirely out of linen and is very nice against skin and as it doesn’t have any metallic wires it also doesn’t press anywhere. It also is just much more flattering than bras at least for me. It doesn’t work that well without the skirt, the waist starts wrinkling and moving up, but the skirt keeps it pretty straight. The bodice is also slightly too long and it doesn’t sit exactly on my waist, so it adds to the problem. It’s not a huge problem though, it’s just a bit annoying.
I’m planning to test out a version where I’ll reinforce the eyelets with synthetic baleen instead of cord and put baleen in the other side too and maybe in the center front so I could use it as a separate undergarment without the annoying wrinkling. I’m also planning on doing 16th century kirtle bodice or the full kirtle (or both maybe as separate but attachable pieces, like with the bathhouse dress) with either stiff interlining or boning and Regency short stays. I want to test out different types of supportive undergarments in my quest for better bra options. Maybe after I’ve done them I’m ready to try Victorian corset too.
‘La M. de la Corsets’: c. 1832 lithograph showing a dressmaker or tailoress and client. The undergarments depicted include sleeve-plumpers.1830s Thursday: Big sleeves, and even bigger dreams for women’s rights.
The growing vulnerability of working women in industrial society provoked a forceful response. In 1825 hundreds of them went out on strike against New York City clothing houses. In 1831 these same women organized themselves into a mass-membership United Tailoresses’ Society. At a time when journeymen were still devoting their political efforts to a defense of artisanal prerogatives in the master’s shop, these “tailoresses” (the appellation itself testified to an advanced degree of industrial consciousness, excluding as it did the more traditional dressmaking of the “sempstress”) already understood that in a capitalist economy no aspect of the work relationship remained non-negotiable. […]No one can help us but ourselves, Sarah Monroe, a leader of the United Tailoresses’ Society, declared. Tailoresses should consequently organize a trade union with a constitution, a plan of action, and a strike fund. Only then could we “come before the public in defense of our rights.” The Wollstonecraftian rhetoric was conscious. Lavinia Wright, the society’s secretary, argued that the tailoresses’ low wages and hard-pressed circumstances were a direct result of the way power was organized throughout society to ensure women’s subordination in all social relations.— Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men’s Dress in the American Republic, 1760-1860
I was disappointed in my search for pictures of Sarah Munroe, Lavinia Wright, or really anything to do with the United Tailoresses’ Society. One online article outright stated, “We know very little about this speaker, Sarah Monroe, other than that she was a garment worker and president of the newly formed United Tailoress Society – the first women-only union in the United States.”
I am in awe of this working-class woman, Sarah Monroe, who is quoted by Michael Zakim as saying in 1831:
It needs no small share of courage for us, who have been used to impositions and oppression from our youth up to the present day, to come before the public in defense of our rights; but, my friends, if it is unfashionable for the men to bear oppression in silence, why should it not also become unfashionable with the women?‘The Tailor’s Shop’: 1838 lithograph by Carl Kunz and Johann Geiger