Corsets: dressmaking meets engineering

Industrial strength and intricate detail are two of the methods fashion designer Jo Drysdall uses to create her one-off corsets.

“It’s part clothing, part engineering,” she says. “They might be gorgeous fabrics on the outside, but they’ve got a heavy canvas layer underneath and they’ve got steel boning they’re pretty solid.”

Corsets come in different shapes and sizes, but Jo’s are individually fitted to ensure the best support and comfort for the wearer.

“The earliest Tudor and Elizabethan corsets pushed up the bust but they didn’t compress the waist at all. From that period on they gradually changed shape with the fashions until the Victorian ones where they’re doing the real hour-glass thing.”

The support the garment gives the wearer is quite different to modern underwear, Jo says.
“The bra is a modern invention. Basically it hangs everything off the shoulders, and corsets push up from underneath. Some people find that it’s a much more comfortable way to support the bust - easier on the neck and shoulders than a bra.”

Corsets much maligned

The stereotypical image of a corset is misleading, Jo says.

“Popular myth would tell you that they’re very painful. You read about the extremes Victorian women went to corset themselves - a standard corset is very comfortable; they are not uncomfortably constricting. Of course, every fashion has its extremes, but the vast majority of Victorian women wore them all day every day, scrubbing the floors, doing that sort of thing they’re not going to be that bad.”

Corsets appear to have originated as separate garments in the Tudor period, Jo says, defining a corset as a garment that has “boning to stop it collapsing in on itself, and lacing.”

“Back in the medieval period women were wearing tightly-laced under-bodices to hold everything up, and hold everything in … about the Tudor period you’re starting to see corsets coming in as separate garments.”

“There are two surviving Elizabethan corsets they’re not what we would think of as a corset now. We think of Victorian corsets, which nip in the waist. Elizabethan ones create that very tubular shape that you get with Elizabethan clothing, a very conical shape.”

Dressmaking meets engineering

Choice of materials is an ongoing challenge, as the corset is a garment that is under a large amount of stress, but Jo says robust silks are her favourite.

“They need very sturdy fabrics. You can’t use a fabric that is very flimsy or delicate you can’t use stretch fabrics. Probably my favourite would be silks. They look gorgeous; they crease very well and work very well as a fabric. A silk with decent weight to it makes a very nice corset outer layer under that you’ll have cotton and canvas which provide most of the strength.”

Jo’s corsets are designed to be seen. “Traditionally they are underwear, but there’s been a bit of a revival in corsets recently you see them a lot in fashion shows and now they’re outerwear. They’re an expensive garment; they’re a gorgeous garment, so generally if people are going to have one they want to show it off.”

All Jo’s garments are custom-designed and she works with clients to choose materials and ensure that the garment fits them exactly. “It’s the fun way of doing things. It’s part dressmaking and part engineering but I enjoy making them for people of all different shapes and sizes, that’s the fun bit of it.”

Reaction to the finished garment is always positive: “Universally people tend to look in the mirror and say Wow! I look gorgeous’. People are really surprised; it seems to be a big boost for their self-esteem.”

There’s about 25 hours work in each corset, and Jo makes between 20 and 30 a year.
“All walks of life, and all shapes and sizes most people want a gorgeous piece of dress-up clothing it’s an indulgence.”

Works on display

Jo’s work were on display at Parklands library from September 10 to 29 (2007).
“There’ll be some items from the fashion show that I just did, and a few new pieces I’ve been working on. The exhibitions are basically my chance to indulge myself. I get to make the corsets that I want to make. Funnily enough, they just happen to turn out in my size…”

“There’s going to be a mixture of modern interpretations and a couple of historical ones, a couple of crinolines as well (the framework that goes under the Victorian skirts). A bit of a mixture really.”

It is hoped that other artists will follow Jo’s lead and use the library as an exhibition space. “Hopefully it will give people lots of ideas of different things they can exhibit.”

“I like trying out new designs. There’s the standard corset that we all think of, the hour-glass shape Victorian corset, but there are all sorts of other corsets as well. In the Edwardian period you had the ribbon corset, which believe it or not was sportswear. All ladies wore corsets and it was considered you were a bit of a loose woman if you didn’t which is where that saying comes from.”

“Ribbon corsets had panels of overlapping ribbon in them so that the ladies could cycle and play tennis in them so I’ve been experimenting with making them recently; they’ve got lots more sideways flex.”

Later in the year Jo will take part in the Gothic-Punk Exhibition at Our City Otautahi.

Online resources

• Jo Drysdall's Bastet Creations website
• Our fashion guide
• Costume and fashion from our heritage photo collection
• Costume history from the Internet Gateway

Browse the resources in our libraries

• Corsets details of the garments through the ages
• Women’s tailoring history of garments and how they were made
• New Zealand costume and fashion photos from our heritage collection