Something Old- Wedding Corset

Like many of you, I was given my mother's wedding dress to use as I saw fit for my wedding. I knew I wouldn't be able to use it as is because I wouldn't be able to fit into it to save my life (this is my 14 yr-old, size 6, niece modeling it) and it wasn't the style that would fit with my rockabilly theme. I decided to have it made into my wedding corset.

I mentioned in a previous post that I found a delightful seamstress to make my corset for me, so the next step was to prepare the material and see if it could be repurposed. The dress was a satin acetate with a netting overlay that also had pieces of beaded lace stitched onto it. There was a matching train that attached at the shoulders. I planned on using the acetate as the outer layer of the corset with pieces of the beaded lace as an accent.

Despite not being stored properly, the acetate was in pretty good condition and hadn't yellowed at all. The overlay and lace had yellowed, but were still in good shape (no holes, beading complete). There was a slight odor that I knew would come out with washing it. Yes, I said washing it. My mother had looked into having the dress drycleaned and it would have costed anywhere from $150-300! This would have been acceptable if I was planning on wearing the dress as is, but for material pieces- no. I did some research on cleaning methods of vintage clothing and decided to chance washing the material myself, keeping in mind that water does break down the fibers of acetate. I thought it best not to wash the dress sewn together, especially because I was only going to use the train for the acetate and 2 pieces of the beaded lace, so I took the dress apart and only washed the pieces I needed. This way, if the washing did ruin the material, I still had more to try using another method. I ended up soaking the material in oxyclean overnight and airdrying the pieces on plastic hangers.

As you can see by the pictures of my corset, the material cleaned up nicely! Emily of Rohm on etsy did a marvelous job of constructing the corset from my ideas and added the lace on the front panels.

Isn't that sweetheart shape to the top of the corset to die for?

The curves are gorgeous and it gives a marvelous base for my aunt and me to shape my wedding dress bodice on. It hardly feels like I have it on at all!


(crossposted to The Pink Bride)