Safety for the actors was my primary concern when we decided to produce Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The costumes we would be borrowing and/or renting would have almost certainly have been built to be worn over corseted bodies, so we decided that this would be part of the learning experience for the students. 

 

I knew that corsets, or more accurately bodies, stays, or jumps, could be dangerous if they did not fit properly, or if the students were not given adequate instruction and training in wearing them for the length of time necessary for the show schedule. I do not advocate or support so-called "tight-lacing," but I have worn these garments myself as an actor/historical interpreter, and have a first-hand experience with the physical adjustments and allowances needed to avoid injury or complications from unhealthy corset wearing practices.

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Each of the corsets were drafted to the actor's individual measurements, although room for future alterations was allowed for. With the added 3 Maids to the cast, I needed to draft and build 9 boned bodies without any other experienced stitchers to help, and although I was given a slightly higher budget than all previous productions at Emmanuel, the budget did not really match the expectations for expensive nature of these costumes. We chose a lot of budget-saving and time-saving options that I would not choose under more ideal circumstances, but I am still proud of what we were able to accomplish with minimal resources. We did purchase spiral steel boning for the corsets, as that offers a greater range of flexible motion for the wearer.

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To save time for this extremely ambitious project, the patterns were drafted directly onto the canvas inner layers, and process documentation was less of a priority than keeping the students safe and getting the students into their corsets with enough time to go through the corset training regimen I planned for their safety and comfort. Some of the actors who needed corsets had to perform movements that I knew would be challenging in boned bodies, so giving them time to adjust to the physical restrictions of 

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Since 6 of the corsets were all covered in the same fabric due to budget restrictions, each of them was given a unique lining fabric to ensure that no one would accidentally put on the wrong corset because  the department had not yet been able to order official costume labels. This application helped make my argument for the need for labels for subsequent shows.