A Corset Story

I love a challenge!  When I was contacted by Jess from A Corset Story and asked if I would like to refash one of their corsets, I happily said yes!  After perusing the huge selection on their site, I eventually just asked them to surprise me.

You see…I’d never actually worn a corset before.  With the rise of boudoir photography, it seems like everyone is getting corseted and sexy.  “Why not?”  I asked.  “I can do it!”

Then it arrived in the mail.

You’re looking at a perfectly lovely black satin steel boned corset.  And I was looking at my rapidly-depleting nerve.  There’s a reason why you don’t ever see me in cute pinup-style dresses and stiletto pumps.  Any time I actually try to look sexy, I end up looking like a sad 12-year-old misfit playing dress-up.  :/

But I had to rise to the challenge!  I needed to make this intimidating garment look a little less severe.  I dug through my bins of fabric, and found this curtain panel I scored for 5o cents at a thrift shop ages ago.

I began to cut.  I snipped out a section that was twice the size of the front of my corset, with an extra few inches added on.

I pressed 1″ of the long raw edge of this section down.

Then, I cut it in half!

I pinned each of these lace sections to the front of my corset, like so:

There was no way my machine could handle sewing through this thing, so I got to enjoy a bit of relaxing TV watching while I hand-stitched.  🙂

Once the long parts were stitched down and the short parts were sewn to the inside, I tacked down each of the points!

Now!  What was I going to wear this with?  I opted for a street style friendly skinny jeans and tank combo with a fun green beret!  Dan helped me lace up the back (You definitely need help getting into one of these) as I sucked in braced myself against a doorjamb.  🙂

I thought my outfit was well-suited for an evening of art gallery crawling!

While in this alley, a gentleman to my left played director for my “photo shoot”.  😉

Some of my friends were fascinated by my minified waistline.

But I liked that my new corset didn’t stick out too much or seem too odd to anyone.  🙂

My corset was surprisingly comfortable, and I must admit…my posture was stellar all night!  🙂

Thanks so much to A Corset Story for presenting me with this exciting challenge!  Do you think you’d wear a refashioned corset out and about, be it steampunk, girlie, funky, or crazy?  How would you have refashed/styled this one?

Cheers!