Corset book is nearly done

My book is due this month so I'm working very hard to tie up all the loose odds and ends,  bring it all together chapter by chapter, zip the files up and send them to my Publisher.  It's hard work and all consuming but no pain no gain !

One of the difficulties is pictures.  Where do I get nice corsetty pictures for my book, without infringing any copyrights, or having to pay through the nose?  Well .. most of the book is tutorial, which means photos and video taken as I go.  The intro chapters, and the bits where I talk about corsetry through the ages, are a little more challenging, but for this I have found a few copyright free images, and the rest, I have drawn myself using a nifty piece of software called Artrage.  I love it because it's much more like proper drawing than other arty packages such as Illustrator and Photoshop but it still uses similar technologies such as layers.  Here's one I 'drew' earlier to illustrate the archetypal Victorian corset shape - small waist, rounded bust and hips:

I have also been in touch with a local museum to see if they would let me photograph some of their items.  They said yes, and waived a large part of their copyright fee, but more excitingly, they put me in touch with a lady who has a private family collection.  I went to see her last week, and though I can't show you what she showed me - because I haven't got any pics - I can tell you that I spent an entire afternoon with her, clutching the most exquisitely carved and polished 1795 stay busk which would have been slotted into the front of a pair of stays a little like this:

source

.... and examining a huge huge pile (and I mean a mountainous pile) of beautiful Victorian and Edwardian underwear and dresses which had belonged to her grandmother!  Not only that, but the lady was able to show me pictures of her ancestors, wearing the very clothes I was looking at!  It was a surreal afternoon I can tell you, and extremely enjoyable.

A historical moment

I have resigned from the day job .. HURRAH!!!!

I have decided to focus 100% on Sew Curvy

I have new supplies for the shop and big expansion plans!

and ...

I am going to start making corsets for a living.

I am going to become a full time corsetiere!

Isn't it exciting?!

I have spent years consternating over suitable names for such a business, and suddenly, the other day I settled on one I'd never thought of before and quickly bought up the  domains.

I have so many ideas my head is BURSTING!

I am learning Dreamweaver in the final weeks of the day job and so should be able to build and manage my own websites which in itself is an exciting design project.

seeds have been planted

On the home front, the greenhouse and all the pots have been cleaned and de-cobwebbed, the compost is ready, the seeds have been bought (from The Real Seed Catalogue), the windowsills are laden with pots, and my chickens are laying again!

Everything is so exciting!!

Sizing and anthropometrics

I wrote an article on here a while ago which covered the topic of Anthropometrics, and i'm damned if I can find it now, but I am inspired to revisit the subject after listening to an article on Womens Hour BBC R4 yesterday with Gemma Seager, fellow blogger at "Retrochick" and a chap called Ed Gribbin, president of Alvanon, a company which advises clothes retailers on size and shape of people.

Anthropometrics, the study of human measurement, is obviously a topic of great interest to the fashion trade and anybody else who uses or cuts dress patterns and makes clothes.  I find it absolutely fascinating!  The subject covers amongst other things,  human proportion and therefore clothes measurements .. ie: a human head will fit into a human leg about 7 times  (fashion models who embody the 'ideal' standard of human perfection are known in the trade as "8 headers" because they have extra long legs!), the distance from waist to upper upper hip is 10cm and from waist to lower hip is 20cm,  the bust typically has an 8cm radius etc.,

Though the study of anthropometrics has existed for centuries, Standard sizing in the clothing industry was only 'discovered' by the Guild of Military Tailors during WW2 when they noticed a certain 'uniformity'  in the clothes they were making for male and female soldiers and military personnel.  The 'standard' sizing in use today as the model for all other sizing charts, is still based on those dimensions from the 40's when women, men and children were a very different shape and size to their counterparts today.

Many high street clothing brands make up their own 'standard' sizing building clothes which conform to a certain body shape and a certain demographic - a teenage size 12 is not going to be the same as an elderly size 12, or a middle age size 12.  The trouble is (apparently) that clothes brands don't find it important to mention which demographic they are aiming for and so clothes shopping for the average woman can turn into a black pit of pain, panic and horror after the first three changing rooms! 

In practice, for me as a typically 'curvy' female who's shape has not altered that much over the last 20 years (notwithstanding the recent middleaged spread), this means that if I shop in Next and M&S - aimed at the post 20's-middle age market, I know I'm a size 8 in bottoms and a size 12-14 in tops, but in Jane Norman - a shop aimed at the teenage and early 20's market,  I am a size 14 in everything.  I can therefore go into any of those shops, pick something up without trying it on, and know that it will fit.  

On the other side of the coin, I  know that Levi jeans never fit  because their target demographic is 'twig' - it's taken me 20 years to deduce that fact.  Similarly, Karen Millen and Coast (owned by the same company) only make clothes for tiny flat chested pixies - deduction time = 5 minutes.

The same goes for more 'intimate' apparel.  I know that the Bravissimo style of bra sizing suits me.  I also know that bras sold by other retailers who conform to that method of sizing, will fit me, and I know who they are.  M&S underwear makes me look like an ugly pink overflowing sausage whatever size I choose.

Confusion continues to reign at home when I am making my own clothes, in modern dress patterns I am a size 12, in vintage dress patterns, a size 18.

In short, womens sizing is like womens hormones ..  All over the place! You have to know how to deal with them in order to avoid a life of despair!

So it was with interest I listend to Womens Hour on Radio 4 yesterday to hear talk of a proposed new system of standard sizing for the high street based on modern womens size AND SHAPE.   Actually Queen Bravissimo thought of that first - here is the Bravissimo sizing chart:

I personally think that the woman behind Bravissimo should be honoured with the title of "Queen" or similar, because she is my saviour.  Before Bravissimo the task of finding a bra for my small frame yet substantial cuppage was painful and emotionally draining requiring at least a week of 'build up' before and a further week of severe depression after.

As you can see it covers the range of 'standard' sizes from UK 8 upwards, but then a sub catergory of two sizes, curvy/really curvy, really curvy/super curvy.

At first I thought "goodlord! how complicated is it going to be just to buy some clothes?" but after some contemplation, I think it will be a good thing IF retailers ensure that there is plenty of stock for all - ofcourse it could mean that their stock increases three fold if the industry advisors have their way - they suggest 3 sub catergories:

straight - for the a 'boyish' figure

moderately curvy -  60% of women fall into this catergory

quite curvy - hourglass figure and mathcing the original standards of the 40's

Will retailers clothing policies become more transparent - will they want to encompass all or just one type of fit? 

The question is

Will this sizing system make our lives better or worse?

I am not so sure it is the answer - there are so many variables to shape and size in our modern age that I wonder if it is possible to find a definitive standard that fits all.  It was this very problem which put me off shopping for life and turned my attention to the sewing machine ..

What do you think Readers?

A mood board for a Marie Antoinette

I watched "Marie Antoinette".  Have you seen it?  Oh lordy!  There were Corsets, there were Cakes, there were Shoes and there was Shopping, not to mention all of the rumour and scandal mentioned on the box!  It was a feast for the eyes and the senses ... Blow  historical accuracy, that film was stunning!  

And so I spent ALL DAY on Sunday - bearing in mind EVERYTHING ELSE that I have to do - making a 'mood board' of images inspired by the film - it's the colours I love.  Here's what I ended up with:

 

 

Now I have an idea to "Mood Board" Moulin Rouge, another visual feast ... sigh.

ps: Have you noticed the "musical theme" to my last two titles.

Inspiration for sewing

Just when I get back into the swing of regular blogging again, I get struck down by a nasty tummy bug that's doing the rounds, which means that I haven't had a chance to prepare a proper blog post over the past couple of days. Typical!

In the meantime, I thought I'd mention some of the things on my "To Do List" for this year. I'm not sure in which order these will appear, but there's nothing so motivational as a blog to get one going!

My main, and ongoing project for the blog, will be skirt making. I aim to tell you how I make a basic skirt block, and then from there, how I customise the basic block to make different designs. It's an easy peasy skill which might mean that none of us either have to buy a pattern or an actual skirt ever again! I have already drafted up and cut a pattern based on this vintage style vogue pattern:

We'll all be learning together - a variety of styles - as I'm no expert! so I hope you will join me for the ride.

As blogged before, I've been selling a few male corset kits and even a couple of "His n'Her" corset kits from my website, and since i've never actually made a male corset before, that's one of my more pressing 'to do' items. Lucky Mr Marmalade will be my model!


I've been thinking about the idea of making a wedding dress for quite some time now and I think the time has come to just jump in and see what happens. I remember being enchanted when I was a young girl, by the wedding dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. I thought it was the most beautiful wedding dress that ever there was so I am thinking of designs around this but which also incorporate some sort of corset detail.

Talking of which! I've been featured on the Folksy Wedding Blog - much to my surprise, and with something I had, even more surprisingly, never even thought about - that's my corset there on the top row.


STEAMPUNK weddings! Oh my!! Can this poor little brain of mine cope with yet more ideas racing around it like motorbikes on a wall of death?!

Chicken wire corset mannequin

or... how to make a corset mannequin with chicken wire and modrock!

The trouble with the usual type of mannequin or dress form is that they are too solid to model a corset - no 'squish' factor. To display corsets therefore, you can either use a couple of pillows like this ...

Or you can make a bust. The pillow option is ridiculously expensive as you need quite puffy feather pillows which are expensive. So I figured (haha!) i'd have to do something different for my shelf in Antiques on High. I had some chicken wire in the shed, so I rolled it up into a tube and tried to shape it ... without much success. It's quite 'bouncy' and I couldn't really make up my mind where the curves should go to start with. So I let the corset do the moulding - just as it would do on a person..


After much wrestling I managed to tie the corset around the chicken wire tube - corsets are quite springy too! Then after tightening the back laces quite gradually, I then modelled the wire from the inside.

With a bit of artistic 'scrunching' at the top and bottom, the thing took shape - the corset here isn't quite finished, so I had to be a bit careful with the stray bits of wire poking out from the chicken mesh.

I fancied a bit of a play with some Modrock, though really i'm not sure the bust needs it. It will add stability and a bit of strength anyway, and OH! what FUN!! Squidgy, squadgy bandages! I found it quite meditative when smoothing them over the form..

So here is 'Katie'! Don't ask me why her name is Katie, it just is .. And currently, she is 'drying' in the shed after having been sprayed with a whole can of paint. Stay tuned to find out What Katie did Next!