Over at Lady Wilhelmine’s I have been documenting my long and relatively stress-free journey of creating the Shweshwe corset. This definitely falls under the more miscellaneous of my creations.
Here are some pics:
To see the process and here my thoughts on 18th century corsetry in general check out Lady Wilhelmine’s Boudoir.
Tags: 18th century corset, shweshwe, stays, stomacher
A few days ago I received a link from a friend that reminded me again of another form of art that I love: arabesque.
Copied shamelessly from CreativeRoots:
“Arabesque is an artistic motif that is characterised by the application of repeating geometric forms and fancifully combined Arabic calligraphy.”
These particular images were created by Muhammad Abdulmateen and each feature a passage or a word that has been used to create these designs. Also have a look at these Arabic Calligraphy pieces.
There is also a book worth having that does not only deal in Islamic or Arabic calligraphy, but contains two-hundred beautiful colour plates of all things Arabic and art: the aptly named Arabic Art by Prisse d’Avennes.
You can also create your own circular patterns and squiglys on Myoats:
Myoats is a community where people create designs using an online drawing application. These designs can be rated, downloaded, and archived. The Most Liked designs are rewarded by being featured on the home page.
In my own Myoats designs I tend to be rather aimless and do no justice to the medium, but some of the people on there are creating truly exquisite things.
These are also much more organic than is normally my style, but at least I was being a bit experimental!
And finally there is my own attempts at some western (and may I add a little snarky) arabesque. I made these back in 2007 to illustrate how I felt about my course at the time. There is a progression from aggressive and ugly to a slightly more positive and appealing design. (So yes, I know the first two designs are a bit unevolved and they are in fact supposed to appear that way.) I give you Fuck You, Bite Me, Thank You:
I was maybe in a bit of a bad place at the time…
Tags: arabesque, Arabic Art by Prisse d'Avennes, Islamic art, myoats, Surface pattern design
So lately I’ve been going through a black and yellow phase (that has nothing to do with the Wiz Khalifa song, but it sure makes a catchy soundtrack for the whole thing). It’s just that I used to hate the combination of black and yellow. I always used to think that there was something so…desolate about yellow when paired only with black. Yet lately there has been a few things that made me change my mind, and now I am quite converted. So I give you the Black & Yellow Phase.
Every phase always culminates itself in a wallpaper or repeat surface pattern design of some sort, and this is no exception:
Surface pattern / textile design 1
Surface pattern / textile design 2
Surface pattern / textile design 3
And then there are all sorts of other things that are black and yellow:
Other things that come in black and yellow
At Lady Wilhelmine’s Boudoir there’s even be a Black & Yellow Corset!
Tags: Back and Yellow, Surface pattern design, Textile design
Self-portrait of me having a brain fart.
So…this blog has been a bit quiet for a while, gone dormant while I was working on a bit of writing that will henceforth be referred to only as The Project. Suffice it to say the project is a bit secret and very possibly quite lame, but it has given me the wonderful idea of trying to create a webcomic out of the soup of ideas that are now floating around in my brain and on my computer. Or at least that is the plan. Of course I haven’t started yet, so here is a preview of something I made way back when in the days when The Concept (which informs The Project) first assailed me.
Desiderata, The Queen of the Heart
Tags: ink drawings, journal, The Project
So I’ve dug up my old friend the graphic design course compulsory visual journal that we were all told we couldn’t live without. I have half a mind to start drawing stuff in there again, but there is just never time. Never any time because I have taken it upon myself to start a completely unmanageable project (henceforth referred to as The Project) that is not only well beyond my ability, but also eating up my ENTIRE life.
Kinda makes me feel the way I did at university, hence the nostalgia and the journal.
Here are some covers:
Front cover A sports a self-portrait of me. This is what I seemed to think I look like back then: tired and depressed with a weak chin. The title of this side of the journal is “In the Shadows” and this was used for all the work I cleverly thought would help improve my case and make my lecturers decide I deserved to pass. A lot of it is bad and most of it is pretentious.
Front cover B features a very happy drawing of a yacht on the ocean, pretty much expressing my intense desire to be at the beach rather than in the studio. It is titled “Sailing in Dover” and everything in this side of the journal was stuff I really wanted to do. Which probably didn’t improve my case as what I wanted to do was considered seriously uncool by the ultra with-it people who took it upon themselves to try and force design into my skull.
Also, I love the way Fawkes from The Guild picks up the phone and immediately informs the caller that he is “journalling”. That, and I also tend to use old-school/Victorian/geek methods of writing or drawing in journals with quill and ink. Took me right back to my own journalling days.
Tags: book cover, graphic design, ink drawings, journal, journalling, visual journal
And here is the (finally) finished product!
Front view of finished Cardboard Corset. With Golden paper stomacher.
Side view of finished Cardboard Corset.
Back view of finished Cardboard Corset.
The tabs at the bottom of the corset started flaring out during the process of lacing instead of following the curve of the body as it should have done if the corset was made out of fabric and proper boning. I used a length of black trouser elastic attached at their ends to keep them in check, and I think the effect is actually more effective. With the elastic the curve of the hips is better defined and creates a bigger contrast with the cinched waist, which is exactly the kind of optical illusion you want when working with stays.
Close up of finished Cardboard Corset with a very defined and well-structured cinch at the waist and curve over the hips.
I also created a stomacher of to go with the corset. In this particular case the stomacher provides the wearer with a choice of how tight the corset should be laced. It can be laced tightly so only a sliver of the stomacher wouldn be visible, or loosely so that more of the stomacher shows. The stomacher was made with painted and decorated cartridge and then covered in contact paper to make it more flexible and durable. It is seamed all the way around with the thick golden thread used to sew jeans.
Golden cartridge stomacher.
The inside of the corset is not lined as it definitely should be, and makes in an interesting comment about fashion as the boning and sewing leaves deep groves in the skin after wear.
Deep grooves left in the skin after wearing the unlined cardboard corset.
And that is the Cardboard Corset!
Tags: 18th century corset, boning, cardboard, cardboard corset, finished product, stays, stomacher
Boning! The hardcore part of corsetry! Boning, historically, has been quite a creative area, and people were always looking for materials that would be both sturdy and light enough for everyday wear. Reeds and whalebone were favourites where 18th century stays were concerned, but neither of these were either feasible (or legal) for my particular needs. I’ve heard it suggested in several sources that cable ties (zip ties, tamper proof ties) can work in a pinch, and it seemed poetic to finish a cardboard corset with boning that came from a hardware store rather than a haberdashery. I bought them in bulk: 100+ ties of 30cm/14 inches each.
The corset on which my project is based was a fully boned corset, meaning that the entire corset was boned, not just the seams as is the case with more modern corsets. But since I had been using the corrugated cardboard exactly for the purpose of creating structure I thought it would only be necessary to bone the tabs as that was the area on the waist that would take the most strain.
Boning at the tabs. Tabs also received extra stitching between the edging to create more bone channels.
Close-up of boning at tabs as well as extra stitching.
However….in the end I decided to bone the whole thing, having bought the ties in bulk in all that. It appears it must have been pre-meditated after all, because when I did the horizontal stitching I made sure that they corresponded to the ridges in the cardboard (marked with black on the cardboard in previous pictures) effectively creating bone channels that I may or may not later choose to use.
Fully boned.
The overlap in boning at the back and in some places around the waist was mostly intentional to provide extra strength to areas that would likely to take more strain.
Close-up of bones and bone channels
Tags: 18th century corset, bone channels, boning, cable ties, cardboard, corset, corset pattern, corset tabs, stays
As the project progressed and I fiddled more and more with the corset the cardboard became quite pliable vertically (not yet horizontally) and I was increasingly concerned about the fact that the cardboard might tear at the seams. In the end I decided to make tearing virtually impossible by reinforcing the entire breadth of the corset with horizontal stitching running from one end to the other. The plan was to make the stitching run from the one eyelet at the centre front, through the corresponding eyelets at the centre back and back to the other eyelet at centre front. The only problem was that the amount of eyelets in the front did not match the amount in the back, which had the result that one eyelet in the front had no stitching going through it. However, this had very little effect on both the structure and the design. I also went to some trouble to make sure that the stitching runs with the ‘flow’ or shape of the corset, rather than running in a straight line from point A to B.
Vertical stitches running the breadth of corset on the inside
I also stitched all around the edges to keep everything together and avoid the several layers of the cardboard and contact adhesive to peel away from each other with wear. This also served to reinforce the very weakest part of the cardboard/contact adhesive marriage: the tabs. The edging gave them some strength, structure and elasticity that they previously lacked.
Close-up of horizontal stitches and edging on the inside.
One thing about the String used for sewing that I didn’t mention before is that I used normal cotton twine that I dyed black myself. I did this because it was less expensive than using lovely solid black embroidery thread and much less ‘woolly’ than using black wool. However, there seemed to have been some synthetic compound in the string because the dye didn’t take too well and left me with blue instead of black. This didn’t matter too much for the inside of the corset that was starting to look increasingly patchy, but it left the outside with blue stitching on black that just looked sadly accidental. In the end I used the blue string as is…
Close-up of the horisintal stitches and edging on the outside.
But decided to colour in the exposed bits of thread on the outside with a magic marker! It worked wonderfully.
Outside view of horizontal stitching and edging with blackened string.
Tags: 18th century corset, cardboard, corset, corset pattern, corset tabs, stays
Now came the task of sewing it all together. As I’ve mentioned before I added quite big seam allowances to counter any tearing that might occur, and stitched the entire seam allowance. With the later measures I took to avoid tearing I’m no longer convinced that the big seams were necessary and their function is now almost purely decorative. And I say decorative because I like the way the big seems define the panels of the corset which otherwise would have gotten lost in the conical shape of the finished product.
Inside of corset with panels sewn together and center back panels laced very unhistorically.
Close-up of inside seams.
Outside of corset.
Notice the armholes are now cut a bit lower than before: halfway through sewing the panels together I changed my mind and decided to make some more armpit-allowance in the hopes of increasing the wearability of a garment made out of cardboard…
Tags: 18th century corset, cardboard, corset, corset pattern, seam allowances, stays
