The Scale Mail Corset: Part I-Planning & Mock Up

Scale Mail Corset-The Beginning

A few months ago I decided I wanted to make a scale mail corset after seeing these inspiring images of Bones and Lilies’ scale mail bodice and some runway pieces from Mcqueen that suggest scale mail. While black and silver are a classic combination, I wanted something a bit softer, more feminine and subdued.

 

Stage 1: Making scale quads

After reading about Bones and Lillies’ experiences, I decided to make 4-scale quads instead of an entire sheet of scale mail.

I ordered my supplies from The Ring Lord, large size scales with split rings.  Initially, I opted for split rings because they are more durable than regular jump rings and require virtually no repairs since the ring is so secure.

However, if you decide to embark on a project like this, purchase the regular rings instead of split ones. While I eventually figured out my own technique for assembly, it’s not very intuitive initially to assemble these with split rings because

As of this writing I have about 70 or so scale quads; I’ll need about 100 in total. My ever-cheerful fiancée has taken up the quest along with me and learned how to do it so we can meet the deadline for this piece (early July).

Stage 2: Selecting Fabric and Choosing a Corset Pattern

After perusing a variety of scale mail corsets and considering fabric choices, I opted for “poppyseed”-colored dupioni silk from The Silk Baron.

In person, the fabric is a two-tone mix that vacillates between silver, subdued purple and lilac. It pairs well with some of my other favorite colors—silver, blue, black, etc—making for a nicely versatile base. While I considered ordering a custom corset from another maker, I realized that would cause finishing problems with the piece itself, since the many hand stitches would show through the lining. Furthermore, many of the classic corset shapes on the more affordable or moderate end tend to “squish” the bust, rather than gently shape around it.  Ultimately, despite the investment of time involved, I decided making it myself would allow me to control the quality, fit and shape in several crucial ways.

I’ve made a few corsets in the past, primarily using the “welt-seam method.” I’ve worked with custom drafts, Ralph Pink Patterns and Truly Victorian. For this corset, I wanted to try a new method and a new pattern, since I was frustrated with the way the welt-seam method sometimes caused dragging and wrinkling problems on curvy seams. For this reasons, I decided to use coutil bone casings and the “sandwich method” to create a 2-layer corset. The floating lining, constructed according to Sidney Eileen’s tutorial will beautifully mask the interior hand-stitching of individual scales.

In order to save time on construction and drafting, I bought the Express Corset-Making Course from Scarlett Stafford’s website and the Cupid Corset pattern. I spent an evening modifying the pattern to my measurements earlier this month. I didn't document this, however, Scarlett made it easy (see notes below).

Here is the pattern I settled on-as you can see, it has a nicely defined waistline and a well-shaped bust, avoiding many of the issues of the afore-mentioned "bust-squishing" corsets. The trade-off is that the cups require a fair amount of precision, but this seems like a good trade for a lovely shape.

Regarding the Express Corset-Making Course: although some of the more advanced makers on some of the sewing groups I follow said the course was nothing special, since I am a visual learner, it has helped me tremendously so far. Seeing the techniques clearly and up close as well as reading about them helped me construct a mock-up of a much higher quality than I usually would be able to produce. Furthermore, Stafford’s break-down of the math involved in resizing measurements was profoundly clear, to the extent that my coutil mock-up may be a near perfect fit on the first try!

Stage 3: Constructing the Coutil Mock-Up of the “Cupid” corset

In order to document my process and determine what does and doesn’t work, I decided to create my mock-up as a proper corset, rather than a muslin-boned piece with many shortcuts.

Since the entire front of the corset will be covered in scales, I modified the pattern to be closed in the front. 

Supplies:

After a bit of trial and error, I determined that Tex-40 thread (sourced from SIL thread in NYC) was strong enough for multiple coutil layers. I’ve been using Organ 90 size needles on my industrial machine and changing them periodically throughout the project, since the tight weave of the coutil seems to “eat” at them a bit. I did try Organ 100s but they seemed unnecessarily damaging to the material.

Construction of the Mock-Up:

I marked out the pattern on the coutil using wax tracing paper and a wheel purchased in the NYC garment district. Although this is standard use in any fashion design college class, it always baffled me why this wasn’t ever mentioned in home sewing manuals, considering the pre-teen years I spent gently scratching at patterns in frustration when a dart arose. One online source is here.

Materials used:

• Fabric is a tan coutil that was a birthday gift
• ½” boning channels I had leftover from a previous project from Steinlauf & Stoller
• Tex-40 poly-cotton thread instead of my usual Tex-21 (please excuse the offensive mismatch of colors, I wanted high-contrast for stitching practice). For the final creation I will probably spring for strong all-cotton thread, since the corset will be mostly natural fibers (coutil/silk).

I decided to sew on the boning channels before assembling the body, because it made more sense to me. This worked out well.

Here is the CF and the cups pinned and ready. Stafford suggested pinning in this way although I learned at FIT to generally pin in the direction you’re sewing…however, this way was more sensible for pieces that might shift vertically.

While I considered basting the channels on for the mock-up it seemed a bit tedious for this stage, so I opted for careful and potentially excessive pinning instead. I will probably baste the more persnickety boning channels (ie, “free-standing” and not on a seam) for the final garment.

Pictured here is the center front of the pattern. The “V’s” are for the bust cups. I sewed around the corners (slightly in, perhaps 1 mm) so that I’d have a guideline for stitching the cups in that was clear.

Here is one of the corset cups. I decided to grade one of the seams since it might prevent a smooth top-stitching line and reduce overall bulk. I rejected the notion of clipping the seam into corners because that has created pressing issues with coutil for me in the past (impressions).

In terms of order of construction, I opted to construct the entire “based” before inserting the cups, even though the cup pattern somewhat aligns with the front 2 panels. This worked out well. 

Here are two attempts at the “pivot” where great accuracy is required; the second on the right was sewn in one complete pass. Pre-stitching the lower cup area helped increase my accuracy a lot. Obviously the second attempt is far better because I was more aggressive with my clipping at the corners. Professor King (a former teacher of mine) is perpetually right, you can see the result on the right is superior because it can really lay flat.

 

Here is where I stopped for the day. I am very pleased with the shaping of the bust panels and it looks like it will probably fit well with few (if any) modifications). The boning channels weren’t perfect on the left-hand side, though, so I may apply the bone casing for that section only AFTER assembling the entire cup to ensure perfect symmetry.

So far I’m enormously pleased with the pattern. The next step is to finish the last few panels and figure out if a length adjustment is required so I can order flat steels. For lacing, I found a wonderful ribbon supplier in the garment district with an enormous array of  beautiful double-sided satin ribbons, which will avoid the expense of ordering MORE supplies online.

To be continued!