It's a good day to sew!

I feel bright as a button this morning. Despite a late night and waking up early to a shouty baby, the postman delivering my silk at 9.30 has cheered me up immensly. It means I can really motor on my designs as well as start the next wedding dress commission. Sometimes you just know its going to be a good day!

I was having a look back at my research from the Symington collection and on the Met museum website for some much needed enthusiasm. I'm also looking for a corset dated 1911-1912 in which to base a design for a competition (yes - I govern my success by acheived challenges) and I think it is time for me to give one of the Jenyns designs I have had my eye on for a while.

This is the drawing from my original research at the Symingtom collection. For more on this corset see my previous blog The beauty of Fan Lacing

This is D15, not a very glamorous name for such an awesome piece of corset engineering. Dated as 1911, this early Jenyns  no.9 model was licensed to be produced by the Symington Company but was invented and patented by Sarah Ann Jenyns, who with her husband ran a surgical instrument and corset company. Sarah also sold licenses to make Jenyns models in Canada, Germany and the USA.
This is one of the earliest Jenyns designs made by Symington but the Jenyns company still made corsets until late into the 1990's.

Here are some more detailed photo's from the corset. I particularly find interesting the look of fan lacing and the buckle attachment at the front. It has some pretty crazy inserts and seaming which I am going to have to figure out so it should be fun.

Source: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jenyns-sarah-ann-10711

Feeling the love...

I'm really enjoying doing this blog so far, it's really helpful to see that I do get a lot done on a day to day basis....someties when you're in the thick of a project it can feel like you're working and not seeing any results but this is really positive stuff. I can see like a timeline how it is progressing.

I have also decided that I will not be posting up images of the final work until much nearer the time or it will spoil the suprises.

So, as I mentioned in the last installment I have been working on fan lacing concepts today. I started with the inspiration of the neck corset I made the other day for fabrics and styling, and a longline corset block that I have adapted to suit and I now have this gorgeous looking thing:

After I eyeletted it up it was then just a matter of playing with lacing:

It's all wrinkled up because I haven't put any boning in it yet...I will be figuring those out next. I just wanted to see if it worked, et voila!

I still have some design reworking to do to get the fan lacing pieces fitted, but I'm very pleased so far...just some suspenders to go now and I shall call it a night.

A step closer to product

Here I am again, I think if I write up what I did in the morning it's more likely to get done!

Yesterday was a mixed up bag of work, I had clients work to do all day so I didn't really get going on my AFW collection until about 8pm after Riley (my baby) had gone off to sleep.

I really want to do a fan lacing corset in my collection this year, and it being the most unknown to me...it is the first one I am tackling. I have talked about fan lacing corsets in a previous blog beauty-of-fan-lacing if you want to refresh your memory. I have previously made a long line corset that I am basing the pattern on, so the first thing I do is tweak the pattern to acheive the size and shape that I want. As always I have my sketch to guide me.

I am making this corset to go with the neck corset I finished yesterday, so it will follow similar stylelines and use the same fabric.

Although I didn't get much of the construction done, I have also been thinking about details and decoration, and looking through my archive of fashion books I have been delving into 50's couture for inspiration...I found a particularly amazing use of applique lace which I intend to utilise on a dress by Michael Sherard made in 1958.

I adore the detailing of this dress, it is so simple and so effective and it totally works with the styling I have in mind for Fleurs Du Mal. So I will use that as my basis and move on from there. So here was my work from yesterday as it now stands in my workshop.

Fan lacing...experimenting...

Experiments with fan lacing going well.

I've been  trying to incorporate concepts of fan lacing with the aesthetics of the Victorian corset. Been having loads of fun finding different ways of lacing up the back to get the most out it. I have surmised from  my experimentation that considerable fitting must be made to the lacing to make it 'fit' correctly, so upon purchase of one of these models an assistant will have had to adjust these laces to the wearer exactly before the freedom of daily self lacing could happen. Presumably, the design itself allows a certain amount of flexibility for the wearer top loose/gain weight as all they would have to do (unless weight change is dramatic) is go and have the laces re-fitted at the retailer.

Interesting.

Also of note is that the fan lacing corsets are not meant to be tight laced like their predecessors. There is just not enough flexibility to gain the 4" difference you could expect from a traditionally designed corset.

I love the idea of incorporating fan lacing as a decorative feature on a traditional shaped corset. This is a first propper attempt, very pleased with it...further experimentation required. Took me three lacing's to make it work. Phew!