Corps Pique on display in Terra Pomaria Arts and Sciences Competition Showing off the Corps Pique Winner of the Competition (in the Costuming Category) Receiving the Arts and Sciences Championship Corps Pique - Corset Project In these pictures, I hadn't slept for over 30 hours trying to finish the Corps Pique in time for the competition. I ended up being awake a total of 40 hours that day. The event is Winter's End, held in Salem Oregon. Photos were taken by Brian Lingar (known in the SCA as Lord Rafe Neuton). Below is the actual documentation I submitted with Corps Pique. It goes into detail about the construction and materials used in this project Woman at her Toilet, 1600 French School See more pictures

Entry: ‘Corps Pique’ (Known in the 21^{st Century as a Corset)}
Contestant: Lady Adele Fontane (Brooke Revere)
Type: Art
Category: Costuming (Undergarments)
Timeframe: 16th Century
Location: France

‘Corps Pique’
Known in the 21^{st Century as a Corset}

The persona I play is a young lady living around 1544. She is terribly fashion-conscious, and tries to keep her wardrobe up-to-date. Wide shoulders, narrow waists and round skirts are still popular, but times have changed and the classic Tudor figure has been modified by an angular, completely curve-less torso. A few years ago she could have slipped by without wearing stiffeners under her gown, but no more. She needs to update her look.

While visiting France, she learns how to make a mysterious, quilted, boned undergarment that brings her figure back into vogue.

Exactly what she used is still shrouded with mystery, so I will have to wait until the 1570s to get a glimpse into what she’s doing.

How did she do it? How did she achieve such a sleek, angular figure? It must be corsetry, but discovering the precise technique used has proven difficult.

In 1577 Jerome Lippomano wrote:

 

French women have inconceivably narrow waists; they swell out their gowns from the waist downwards by whaleboned stuffs and vertugadins, which increases the elegance of their figures. Over the chemise they wear a corset or bodice, that they call a ‘corps pique’ which makes their shape more delicate and slender. It is fastened behind which helps show off the form of the bust.

Taken from the “Bodies” chapter of
Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d

My persona was probably wearing a boned bodice which she called a “Corps Pique” (pronounced 'kOr pi-'kA.). It would have laced up the back, and been stiffened with whalebone. The entry for “pique” in Merriam-Webster Dictionary is:

Etymology: French piqué, from past participle of piquer to prick, quilt
Date: 1852
A durable ribbed clothing fabric of cotton, rayon, or silk

So what did it look like? How did it fit? Unfortunately, extant examples are painfully scarce, and painters didn’t seem interested in painting ladies in their underpinnings (nude or dressed in a flowing chemise was more elegant).

The two oldest known extent examples of corsets (called in England at that time “Pair of Bodies”) are from around the year 1600. Perhaps from these two sources it may be possible to extract an intelligent theory as to what was being used during the previous sixty years.

Several months ago I decided to sew this garment that, theoretically, my persona would have worn. Armed with very few fragments of information, and drawing heavily from later-period sources, I embarked on an interesting, though labor-intensive project – the Corps Pique.

Materials

100 % Silk Satin
100 %Linen Fabric
100 % Silk Thread
100 % Linen Thread
Plastic Cable Ties

Construction

The garment is comprised of three pieces: the front panel and two back sections. They are stitched together with very tiny whip stitches along a curved seam in the back.

I used my own measurements to draft the pattern.

There are three layers of fabric. The outer layer is ivory silk, while the two inner layers are linen.

The channels are ½ inch apart, sewn with a straight stitch, and filled with white, plastic cable ties.

Bias tape was made from the ivory silk and used to bind the edges (over 200 inches of it). A half-backstitch was used to attach the tape, and a whipstitch was used to tack it down on the back.

Lacing holes were made with an awl and a sharpened chopstick.

The busk was made from a wooden ruler and sanded smooth with an emery board (really!).

The ‘French bodie’ probably took its name from this early French fashion, a quilted or stitched bodice. The idea of putting strips of whalebone between the rows of stitching may have originated in France. Mr Starkie’s daughter wanted her ‘French bodie’ to be stiffened with horn, to produce an even more rigid effect than the strips of whalebone used for Thomasina’s ‘pair of French bodies’, with a whalebone busk at the front.

Janet Arnold
Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d

Drafting the pattern was fairly simple. Using techniques I learned a year and a half ago from The Renaissance Tailor’s website, www.vertetsable.com, I drafted a basic bodice pattern by taking measurements from key points on my body and drawing them out on paper. I then subtracted two inches from the bust and added tabs to the waist. It’s not all that difficult, really. You just have to know where to measure, and how to draw the lines in between.

For materials, I wanted to be as authentic as possible. Janet Arnold’s book, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, helped with ideas. I read the “Bodies” chapter several times, scouring for information. According to the quotes she cited, I concluded that my fabric choices were rather broad. Satin and velvet seem to be the most common; taffeta, damask, canvas and leather are also mentioned.

As for color, again, options abound. Stomachers and Pairs of Bodies are mentioned in all sorts of colors including white, ivory, crimson, carnation (striped with gold and silver), drake, ash and, quite often, black.

…Walter Fyshe is entered for altering ‘a payer of bodies of blak satten garded chevernewise and making of a newe coller for the same’ in 1569, and ‘for cutting out a pair of bodyes and slevis of the frenche fation of black vellat’ in 1571.

-Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d

I chose to do ivory silk satin for the outside and cream-colored linen for the two inner layers. Not only is this a logical choice, but also the descriptions from period point in that direction. The Neuberg corset used this construction method. The following is an excerpt from the web page: http://costume.dm.net/corsets/history.html

The first and best known example of a 16th century corset is the German pair of bodies buried with Pfaltzgrafin Dorothea Sabine von Neuberg in 1598. This corset is shown in detail on page 47 and 112-113 of Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1560-1620 and in Jutta Zander-Seidel's book Textiler Hausrat. It is made of three layers of cream-colored fabric, the outer layer being silk backed with linen and the inner lining of linen, and has channels backstitched between the two layers into which whalebone was inserted.

I’d never worked with silk or linen, but it seemed like the perfect project to get initiated. I ordered two yards of cream-colored, medium-weight linen from fabrics-store.com, and one yard of ivory silk satin from fabric.com.

There is no way to describe the thrill of working with linen for the first time. I will never forget unfolding the two yards of creamy golden fabric and draping it around myself, just to enjoy the feel of it. I spent much of the evening wrapping myself in different ways, loving the elegance and versatility of that single length of cloth. But now we’re getting off topic. Back to the Corps Pique…

For a busk, I sawed up one of my yardsticks. Yes, it had to be sacrificed for the project. I tried picking up paint-sticks from the local home improvement center, and was pleased to discover they were free. However, they just weren’t quite long enough at 12 inches. Anyway, I used the miniature saw-blade on my Swiss Army knife to cut a length from my yardstick, and used an emery board to sand it to a silky sheen. Worked great, and now I have a cozy, 20-inch ruler leftover.

With 100% silk, 100% linen, and a shiny wooden busk, it seemed a crime to spoil it with cotton/poly blend thread. First I tried linen thread, found at Craft Warehouse in Salem. That was terrible. The manufacturer purposely left huge slubs in the fabric as an artistic flourish. So before I completely ruined the project, I picked up a spool of white silk thread from Hancock Fabric. That turned my world around - forever. So smooth and strong! How can I ever sew with Cotton again?

Boning posed a problem. Whalebone is completely out of the question, and I wasn’t able to find suitable reeds for the project (though I haunted every craft store in town). So I reluctantly accepted a compromise. Plastic cable ties from Home Depot. They’re sturdy, they’re comfortable and they’re cheap.

Stitches

Backstitch was used for making boning channels on the extant 16th Century German corset, but after agonizing over this decision, I abandoned my favorite stitch in favor of a plain straight stitch. The advantage is that it looks nice on both sides, and less chance of snagging (the backstitch is so much looser).

However, I did use the half backstitch for attaching the bias tape (which I cut from the leftover silk) and I whipstitched it down in the back. 

Half Backstitch	Whipstitch

In construction, I chose to make it more like the Effigy Corset: three pieces whipstitched together at the back seams.

The effigy corset was made of three pieces--two front pieces and one back piece--which were made and finished separately and whip-stitched together along the side back seams before wearing. This technique would allow for easier size changes: if the wearer gained or lost weight, the back could be removed and a smaller or larger piece added.

-http://costume.dm.net/corsets/history.html

The binding on the two corsets and on two extant stomachers of the time was placed right side against the outside edge of the corset, stitched down, turned over to the wrong side, and either hem-stitched down along the edge or stab-stitched through to the front of the corset, following the seam line of the outer binding edge. In the case of the two stomachers, the raw edge was left unfinished on the inside. Binding strips could be made of ribbon, of fabric cut on the bias, or of fabric cut on the straight.

Woman at her Toilet Woman at her toilet - French school of the seventeenth century, c, 1600. Scanned from the book "Lace, History and Fashion" by Anne Kraatz. Caption: The young woman's hair falls over her peignoir of fine batiste decorated with insertions and edgings of needle-made reticella and punto in aria. The cloth which covers the table is made up of squares of embroidered linen alternating with squares of reticella	Effigy Corset Corset found on the Effigy of Queen Elizabeth I. Dated 1602	German Corset 16th Century German corset buried with Pfaltzgrafin Dorothea Sabine von Neuberg in 1598

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Last update to this website: February 17, 2005