Corsets Sewing

Fully Boned, Tabbed Elizabethan Corset

Today I finished a silk cover, fully boned, tabbed Elizabethan corset.  I did not take fully detailed pictures since I was pressed for time during construction and the size of the corset made the logistics of using it as a detailed example piece difficult.  Next time I make a corset like this one I plan to take detailed photos and blog about it.  I am also planning to write fully detailed instructions regarding how to draft such a corset.  I have now made conical corsets for a large enough range of sizes and body shapes that I am confident I can write instructions that will work for just about anybody.

Fully Boned Silk Renaissance Stays - Cover, by Sidney Eileen
Fully Boned Silk Renaissance Stays – Cover

When I set out to make this corset, I looked at the piecing and boning patterns for the Effigy corset and various conical corsets from the 1700’s and 1800’s.  One of the odd things about the Effigy corset is the vertical boning continues to the back of the corset.  Given the conical shape, this results in the boning at the sides slanting in a backward direction.  Looking at photos of women wearing re-creations of that corset, this seems to throw the posture, encouraging the pelvis to lean forward.  Given that every corset from the following two centuries has side boning that is either vertical or forward-leaning (never back-slanting), I decided that it would make for a more practical and comfortable corset if I did not exactly imitate the Effigy piecing.

This particular corset also has enough of a slant to it that I was concerned about having the full boning meet on only one seam, which would have resulted in a massive number of short bones meeting on the angle.

Therefor, I decided to use a three-panel piecing, with the side panel vertically boned, and imitate the tab pattern from the Effigy corset.  I say imitate, because this corset is so much larger than the Effigy corset if I had only used three tabs per side, they would have each been about 8″ wide.

Fully Boned Silk Renaissance Stays - Lining, by Sidney Eileen
Fully Boned Silk Renaissance Stays – Lining