Lacing

All the Busk Fronted corsets will be sent to you pre-laced. It should not be necessary to undo this when you take it off, just loosening should be sufficient. All Plain fronts and Strapped corsets will have to be laced and unlaced completely, each time they are worn. This is much easier with the help of someone else but can be done on your own by lacing loosely around yourself at the front then twisting it round to the back and tightening up as normal.

The simplest way of lacing is described below, there is an alternative to this method which can draw in the waist more called Victorian Lacing.

Criss cross neatly, from bottom to top.

Hold one end of the ribbon in your right hand. Thread this through the bottom eyelet on the right, from the front then through the back of the bottom eyelet on the left.
Pull half of the entire length through so you an equal length of ribbon on each side. If your lacer steps back holding each end of the ribbon in each hand so that they do not cross, they can check they have equal lengths on each side and the ribbon is coming through the front of the eyelet on each side.
Thread the ribbon held in the right hand through the back of the second eyelet on the left hand side, and pull through.
Swap hands so the ribbons coming out of the holes are uncrossed and continue threading with left hand to back of right eyelets and right hand to back of left eyelets. This is just as though you were lacing a pair of boots.
Lace loosely all the way to the top, or until you run out of ribbon, then tie loosely in a bow.

Take up the slack

Pulling the ribbons, as a pair at a time, where they cross between the eyelets. Pull all the slack up to the top and continue threading if necessary. Tie loosely again.
Tighten up. Place your left hand in the small of the wearers back and, as before, pull the lacings as a pair at a time, hooking your index finger behind a pair of crossed ribbons and firmly drawing in.
Pull the slack up through the next pair of eyelets and draw in firmly again. Continue this, feeding up the slack and drawing in up to the top.

Position yourself Properly

Scoop and lift the boobs together
Then twist the corset back and forth. This redistributes the tightness more evenly and should get rid of any crease in the skin down the spine. And usually allows the top of the lacing to be brought in another inch or two, giving more shape and support.
Adjustment to the fit of the corset largely comes from tightening and loosening the lacing, drawing slack upwards and downwards to suit the wearer. Ideally there should be a gap of around 2 inches running parallel between the edges of the corset. This can be from between _ an inch to 5 inches on the bigger sizes. Depending on whether the wearer is busty or curvy the steels and eyelets may lie in a "V" shape, inverted or not.
The corset should fit flush to the skin with no great overspill at the front or back (fig.10). If this happens loosen off the lacing and twist it back and forth again.

How should the lacing look?

Two images

The fit can be adjusted dramatically by tightening and loosening either at the top or the bottom. Ideally there should be a parallel gap between the steels of around two inches. This can be more or less, from half an inch up to five inches on the larger sizes as the proportions can accommodate this.

Fitting - Moulding the steels

The steels are distributed around the corset between the polyester boning and the cotton backing. These give firm support and prevent the corset from folding up to crease around the waist when worn, as inferior brands do.

These steels can be moulded to give more definition to your shape under the bust and to position the level of the waist. This is particularly useful if you have a short/ long body and/ or small/ large bust. This is done by placing an open hand on the back of the corset and a thumb on the right side on the boning line where you want to crease it and bending the bone and steel around your thumb. The steel will bend and spring back a little so don`t be scared of breaking it. And should you get it in the wrong place you can take the fold out again by putting your open hand on the outside of the corset and your thumb on the inside and squeeze around your thumb again to reverse the crease. The crease can be moved up or down the steel by moving the position of your thumb on the outside of the corset. Eg 1cm up if you are shorter in the body or 1cm down if you are longer in the body.

Special Sauce Customised Corsetry Ltd asserts Design rights and claims Moral rights as defined by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Copyright of the original design and its derivatives are the property of Emma Houghton, the designer. The copyright of the 2003 Autumn/Winter collection of designs is on behalf of the designer by Special Sauce Customised Corsetry Ltd.