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10:34 pm
7/30/06

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dragonlady7
Z and I went to the Sterling Renaissance Festival today, and it was a gay lark indeed. I decided against going in farby costume, and opted for a light skirt and a pair of Tevas instead. Still got complimented on my appearance.

Watched Jugglers On Fire. They were awesome, and also, gay, as in, made almost nonstop jokes about their own gayness, Highly amusing. (London Broil, if you've heard of them. Should find their website. They said they had one.)
Then we wandered, did some shopping, looked at stuff.
Then we watched some thing in mud. It was amusing, mostly because we were clever enough not to have sat right up front near the mudpit, where the audience was getting splashed.
Then we shopped around some more. Went into a place, Wolfstone Kilts I think they were called, and found not only a reasonable selection of actual boned corsets that didn't actually say "FARB!" in gold lamé or sparkle velvet, but also a woman (Virginia, the corset maker herself) who knowledgeably sized me and tightlaced me, while swapping knowledgeable banter about historic reenactment and costuming as well as the merits of sprung steel boning. (The pattern, she informed me, dated from the 1550s and would be made for an aristocratic lady, as it needed a second person to do the lacing.)
Also, her corsets all laced with rawhide, which holds knots much better than the shoelaces or ribbons other garments I've had relied on. She also was knowledgeable about the issues facing the full-busted-- she was at least a C or D herself. (Also she eyeballed me and said, "You wear size ten jeans, right?" I laughed and said, "Fourteen. Tens haven't fit since grade school", and she was genuinely astonished. I don't mean to be easily flattered, but her genuine astonishment amused me. I do look smaller than I am, though, and it's not just salesladies who say that.)
So I tried on two corsets there, and bought the first one. It's a sleeveless design, just basically a tube, boned all the way around, straight at the top, and with tabs in the back where it laces. It's supportive, doesn't pinch my hips, and suits me. It's reversible, one side a rich black brocade, the other side black with a pattern of fine white leafy vines on it. (She said they got their fabrics from "waverley". Shrug.)

Looked at another corset place, the one I got my old one I think. That place was farby on wheels, but cute-- quality boning, decent construction, but nothing whatsoever by way of any kind of authenticity. Durable, though, and I couldn't ask for more. Gold foil patterns, corduroy with spangles, metal snap fasteners, cuteness itself. Didn't try or buy, however, being rather put off by the saleslady's ludicrous fake accent and the crowd of teenage teenyboppers squeeing about tinfoil.

Saw lots of festivalgoers in exceedingly poor-fitting costumes. Enjoyed it nonetheless.

And then, on corset lady's recommendation, we went to see Don Juan And Miguel's Weird Show, which consisted of a little swordplay and stunt whipping, a whole lot of gay innuendo (dude was deep-throating a pickle), and a metric tonne of the two of them just laughing at each other. It was obviously nearing the end of a long but fun run for them (this was their nineteenth year at the Ren Faire), and mostly they were just trying to crack each other up, and letting the audience make them laugh. I liked it a lot, especially when (they were both ostensibly Spaniards) Don Juan called Miguel a "Polack from Chicago pretending to be Spanish," Miguel answered, "Dude, you're Mexican," and promptly made up a song to the tune of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" that featured a bunch of jokes about pierogis. Don Juan responded that he was a Mexican Renaissance Ninja.Hilarity, of course, ensued.

So we liked that a lot, and then went skipping down to see the jousting. Which was holy crap! Way better choreographed than I remembered from last time! They were breaking lances on each other left and right, and the horses were getting way more into it than they strictly ought to have been. Five horses in this thing, all beautiful animals. And then there was an awesome WWF-style free-for-all, featuring a dude leaping off his horse's back onto the other one, and a shield being used as a stand-in for the usual folding metal chair schtick of classic WWF days. Also, armor-clad mud-wrestling. How can you go wrong?

I think there was some kind of overarching storyline to the whole thing, but you know, I never bother keeping up with that sort of thing.

On the whole, a fun day. And I have a shiny corset! And the only thing preventing me from wearing it EVERYWHERE is the fact that, uh, I have to have Z lace me into it.

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On July 31st, 2006 01:47 pm (UTC), [info]kkatowll commented:
Sounds like a wonderful time. :)
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On July 31st, 2006 07:39 pm (UTC), [info]dragonlady7 replied:
It was a hoot. It's the same one you came out to lo these many moons ago. :)
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On July 31st, 2006 06:46 pm (UTC), [info]hathy_col commented:
The bit of me that is still a Gothic Princess is absolutely dying to spend some hard-earned cash on a corset. However, since I have never worn one and am a bit wary about the expense involved, any tips?
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On July 31st, 2006 07:37 pm (UTC), [info]dragonlady7 replied:
Well... I am huge. My torso at its smallest point is 32 inches, and at its largest is 44: I wear a 36F bra in British sizes. So when I talk about needing support, I mean it.
I have one farby RenFest corset that I got in college. It is corduroy and has sprung-steel boning. It works fabulously-- laces at sides and front, and is very sturdy and highly adjustable.
I have one lingerie-y corset I got at Frederick's of Hollywood. It is satin with lace, closes with hooks in the front and laces super-tight in the back. It has plastic boning. I can wear it for about 20 minutes before the plastic wilts and my boobs flop out. I now wear it with a bra underneath for costume parties.

And the new one is sprung-steel boned throughout. I rejected another well-made corset/bodice by the same maker because it was boned only at the lacing-- a bone running down beside the eyelets. That meant that the large panels between the laces were just fabric, and there was a high potential for wrinkling and frumpage where the bulges of my body were given free rein. It would work on a smaller woman, with less, er, bulging, but not me.

So what I look for in a corset is that the thing be able to stop bullets. I am not a reenactor, so I don't care about authentic period detail, but the sorts of things that are Wildly Improbable In Any Era kind of turn me off. So I look for tasteful detailing. Not to say that I wouldn't buy a corset with a steel zipper up the front-- I just haven't seen one I liked. I also cannot wear any underbust or partial-bust styles: they would just be a waist-cincher with my boobs drooping over it. Ew.

If you are of the more, er, girlish sort of figure, you might be able to get away with plastic boning-- you can tell if you take the garment in your hands, and find a bone with your fingers. Plastic is narrower and a little thicker, and you can flex it pretty much in half. Steel is wider but flatter, and you can bend it into a U but not sharper.
The main difference I have found is that plastic will get a "memory"-- if you bend it for a long time, especially with heat applied (hello, my waist at body temperature), it will stay like that. Steel doesn't bend that sharply so it doesn't stay bent.

Other details to look for are 1: Sturdy eyelets. Nice pretty sewn ones might not stand up to the strain on your laces. 2: Reinforced stitching at top and bottom of boning channels. Don't want those babies poking you; it's like your bra underwire coming out. (I have a secret phobia that someday one will sever the artery in my armpit and I will die FROM MY BRA. This is an annoying phobia.) 3: Reasonable laces. Satin ribbons = do not work. 4: A design you can live with. Not only do I mean, looks pretty, but also, either you can do the laces yourself or can deal with asking for help. Also, where does it end? Is it long enough to go down over your hips? Or does it dig in at the fleshy part of your hip just under your waist? Depends heavily on your shape, but is important to consider.

Best thing to do is to try some on someplace with a knowledgeable salesperson. I also think an SCA type group would be useful, as they're interested in corsets for wearing longer than the ten minutes before your lover unlaces them with his teeth. A knowledgeable person will attempt to lace it properly, which entails reducing your waist size considerably (two inches is endurable for the, you know, sane person, though it depends how squishy you are), and also making sure that it fits properly. Fits properly= laces nearly closed. There should not be three or four inches of gap where the laces are. Wide lacing gaps look cute but will make the thing ineffective and prone to wear out fast.

A point to remember: A GOOD CORSET IS COMFORTABLE. Women were not idiots, to wear these things. They're fabulous. They take the strain off your back, give you a lazy way to excellent posture, and make you look fabulous.
It should NOT be hard to breathe. If you ever took singing lessons and they taught you to hold your shoulders still and breathe with your spine straight, most of the actual motion of the diaphragm is upward. The corset doesn't compress that.

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