FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
The Monarch Butterfly Savoye Corset
(click images to to enlarge)
Other Credits
Photographer: Stephanie H.
Outline the story …
The original inspiration was Joanne Arnett’s excellent article tackling Savoye’s 1904 corset patent, and the uniquely beautiful corset she produced from it. One specific technical detail stood out: the strangely large discrepancy between the edges between pattern pieces A and B. Sarah figured out that one of these pieces was cut on the bias, and what appeared to be a mistake in the pattern might be a deliberate feature.
Monarch butterflies winter in our area every year, holding on despite a hundreds of miles long journey and ecological damage. The piping in Joanne Arnett’s corset was reminiscent of the veins in their wings, and the rest of the design happened from there.
We were working on entering it into the 2018 competition with the "Insects" theme, but were unable to since one of us moved far away - but we're back and were able to resurrect this project and finish it.
Outline the construction…
The first big challenge was finding a fabric that would fit the constraints of the pattern. Coutil does not have enough bias stretch–but most fabrics with enough bias stretch don’t have the strength for waist reduction. We tested various fabrics and found that 4-ply silk and silk organza both met the requirements.
We used 4-ply silk and most of the rest of the challenges stemmed from this slippery fabric choice. The busk section and lacing panels were coutil layered with minky.
To position the internal boning channels we used a combination of guessing, trial and error, and excessive amounts of dressmaker’s tape to find positions that worked while trying on the corset inside-out. Then we soaked the corset to dissolve the dressmaker’s tape, which had the exciting effect of shrinking the piping and the bone casings (oops - fabric was not prewashed). Bones were re-cut to match the new lengths of the channels.
The silk panels were hand-stay-stitched before construction, but the bottom edge stretched out anyway, and was carefully eased in before attaching the bias binding. A ribbon threaded through lace trim holds the top edge together above the busk.
The last challenge was a long power outage the day before and leading all the way up to the deadline!
The striking colour of the corset it is beautiful and the fact that you had to find a fabric looked great but also added its own technical difficulties, well done for continuing through the project.
I didn’t even have to read the title to know your inspiration! What a lovely creation!!