How Corsets Are Made

Historically, corsets were made of different material depending on your wealth and status. There are a few different parts to a corset. The fabric was made out of silk or satin for the wealthy, starched linen for the middle class, and cotton for the lower class. No matter what they were made out of, however, the general pattern remained the same depending on the time period. The contents of the corset, however, slowly developed over time.

There are front and back plates to a corset, around which the fabric goes. While many people believe that whale bone was the stiff center pieces, it was actually baleen. Baleen is actually hair that is surrounded by enamel and hardened to a specific shape. Once the Baleen whale was destroyed, steel became the next item to hold together the front and back of the corset. Sometimes wood or horn was used as a substitute.

The gussets were made out of elastic. The outside of the fabric, depending again on wealth and status, was decorated with laces, or embroidered. Silk thread was used to tie all of the pieces together, bringing the hard back and front together with the fabric covering and the sides.

No matter the corset design, the actual size of the lacing in the back and the boning is determined by the natural body shape and what the desired body shapes. Sometimes lacing the back lacing as far as it can go will create fat rolls in the back, and of course at that point it cannot be tightened any further. Therefore the boning in the front is the more important of the two. The thickness of the front boning establishes how much you are able to move and breathe, and how much smaller or larger your hips, waist, and bust should look.

Today however, bone is no longer used in the panels of the corset. The same general theory for construction is applied to the nylon-coated steel used. This steel has proved that it is more flexible than bone so it enables better movement. Making a corset requires time, concentration, and meticulous detail still, but it does not take nearly as long as it did before modern day technologies such as sewing machines and printed patterns to follow.

So now when you order your corset, the measurements are taken and the best pattern for you build is selected. The fabric is measured and the spring steel and back lacing are all sewn together to present you with a piece best suiting your build.