This is a very belated continuation of my first post of this "series". At this point, the front-laced specimen is already worn out and torn out of use, and has been for several years.
It ended up not fitting perfectly - that's the danger of using a well-used old bedsheet with quite a bit of give in it for fitting a muslin of a closely-fitting garment, I think! I completely forgot about that. So if you venture on this sort of journey yourself, use new fabric for your muslins, not old bedsheets? They're fine for more loosely fitting garments, which is why it did not hit me.
Also my figure has changed again. My six centimetres in the bust are back. Frankly I quite liked my sewing D cup, I was used to it, so I'm quite happy to have my six centimetres back. :D
(It's actually also in part to do with the undergarment I'm wearing when taking my measurements, as I found out by putting on an old swim top experimentally. That one got me back down to roughly the minus six measurement, but obviously with a different silhouette. Don't underestimate your undergarments.)
Still, this wearable muslin successfully got me through the summer of 2021 and served as a very good jumping point to finally get it right, figuring out what worked and what didn't. The pluses and minuses.
Minus: One of the major things that didn't work was the fit.
One, I accidentally made it too small in the (front) underbust (totally the fault of overfitting in a fabric with too much give), which is of course where it eventually tore.
Two, the princess seams sat too far out towards the back rather than going over my apex (again, I suspect, the result of overfitting in a fabric with more give).
Three, I put the curved seams on both sides of the princess seam which makes for a bust shape that's rather... Regency. :D (Pointing out to the sides, I mean.) Potentially useful discovery in reference to Regency/1820s stays with princess seams*, but not really a look you want to be sporting in your everyday 21st century life!
* (Modern princess seams usually have the centre piece cut fairly straight and the side pieces accommodating the bust curves, a close look at the famous Musée Galliera short stays shows me it's the other way round around the year 1820.)
As mentioned in Part 1, this is actually the adjusted pattern that led to specimens 2 & 3. But it illustrates the point.
Four, the back turned out to need a bit of taking in at bottom centre in order to really sit flush against my body (and provide even better support). I think that was, in this case, because I stand up much straighter when my bust is properly supported than I did when I created the original pattern (while probably wearing a rather badly fitting bra). However, I also ended up having to take the back in in my experimental Regency wrap bra and in a more recent bra created from a basic block from FreeSewing.org; so I think this particular detail may also have something to do with my recent suspicion/discovery that I have a comparatively narrow back compared to my front and my overall measurements. Not in terms of the over-the-shoulder-blades measurement that's usually considered "a narrow back", I think mine's kind of average for my overall size if not even a bit bigger (I think I do have a bit of a round back going on). But right underneath that point, at the bust / underbust level. Which is precisely what leads to these close-fitting garments having to be taken in at the back - I need to take a wedge out of the bottom hem for proper support.
Plus: Which brings me to a thing that did work in this first bra instance - it did support me. Zero bounce. It kind of flattened my bust, probably sort of in the early 20th century style that this ended up being, and it worked. At least until the whole thing started shrinking and then falling apart... (Or was that due to my bust measurement reduction being only a temporary fluke?)
Minus: Which brings me to another thing that didn't quite work - when I say zero bounce, I mean zero. Zero give. A bit of elastic does come in handy. It's telling that even many Edwardian brassieres did have elastic in the sides...
Aertex bust bodice, c. 1900s, the Underpinnings Museum, ID: UM-2017-001 Photo by Tigz Rice.
For the sort of physical activity I got up to at work (quite a bit of raising arms to reach above my head, actually), a bit of elastic around the straps turns out to be something useful. Not fully elasticated straps like in modern bras, those are annoying... Elasticated sides turn out to be something from the past we should not have done away with!
So yes, those are features I worked into the next step in the evolution of my woven bras.
Plus: What I did quite like about this specimen was the front closure. It didn't work perfectly because I had a fairly short string to lace it (working from stash here, folks), so putting it on was still a bit annoying, and the lacing isn't ideal for wearing under fitted tees. But a front closure really is very nice in terms of not having to fiddle with things blindly while contorting your arms behind your back! Even though by now I'm used to that action and did end up making bras with back closures as my default, I think I also want to try my hand at front-closing ones - both simply because it's a nice alternative, and because, well, accessibility: I think exploring that process could help other people.
Neither quite plus nor minus: I decided that on all future brass I would make the "band" part - the underbust part - a bit deeper/taller so that it grips the underbust better and provides a better "counterweight" to the bust. It wasn't a problem per se, but it is even nicer to wear that way, especially because in these unstructured bras the bust tends to slide down a bit when it's not so flattened. This, I suspect, is an experience anyone with a bust bigger than a C cup is familiar with.
The construction process for woven bras like this is pretty simple: sew the seams, cover the seams with tape (bias for the curves), finish the edges by taping, attach straps. The elasticated panels I started making in later instalments add a complication, but it's still essentially the same.
In this one, I inserted cords into the folded hem at centre front for added strength, and then added handworked eyelets for lacing. The straps, which in this case were just pieces of plainweave tape, I attached with flat-felled seams for a neat and sturdy finish. On principle, as a simple woven bra from a quilting cotton-type fabric, this construction works very well. Everything else I built on top of this basis from now on is just a variation on the theme.
My right strap, in the front, is another place where it started tearing, which I think I can confidently link to all the arm-raising and lack of elasticity.
Further observation: As I suspected, strengthening the centre front in some way and potentially adding more shaping to it also does seem to be rather crucial if you don't want to end up with a monoboob. It's not an accident that Regency stays and Victorian corsets had busks or at least boning down the centre front!
This also happened to be a HSM entry back in 2021, so here's a very belated blog listing for it:
The Challenge: HSM 2021 #3: Small Is Beautiful
What the item is: An experimental 1st part of the 20th century bra.
How it fits the challenge: It's not a big item. 
And it's a pretty necessary part of the whole outfit looking beautiful...
Material: white cotton plainweave
Pattern:
my own; the back was hacked from the pattern of my sleeveless spencer,
the front is the result of a lot of measuring + muslin fitting
Year: 1910s-1930s.
Notions:
cotton bias binding, cotton twill tape (I suspect a blend, actually),
cotton plainweave tape, cotton thread that's two 2-ply S twist Z-plied
(Hagal), cotton thread that's 3-ply Z-twist (Amann) because the previous
turned out not to agree with my sewing machine so I've relegated it to
handsewing duty, beeswax for waxing said handsewing thread, twisted
cotton cord for cording and lacing (for now, I may change it up
eventually)
How historically accurate is it? Meh. It
turned out to be a sort of wearable muslin that's all and nothing and
not entirely correct for any decade (the whole lacing with cording part
takes its cues from even earlier garments, I suspect). But I tested out
the pattern (needs tweaking but works very nicely) and the theory of
vintage bra construction I've derived from looking at lots of photos of
originals on auction sites (because those are usually nice and show
details of the insides), and I think I'm definitely headed in the right
direction here for being able to make 1930s-style bras for both modern
and vintage wear, and hopefully also an even more correct 1910s-style
princess-seamed bra.
Hours to complete: Not sure. It
took several days, not of full sewing, in part because my machine was
acting up (which thankfully turned out to be a thread problem)
First worn: ... not sure which day exactly it was, I've now been wearing it for about two weeks. (June 26 2021)
Total cost: Cost of materials lost to the mist of time. But it would not be much.
Next up: Another dead end. The first elasticated attempt which with all the adjustments for that it took waaaay longer to make than it should have and remains unfinished and abandoned in favour of simpler, better fitted, more sturdy specimens. I made it in a fabric that was too flimsy. Woven bras are one garment type that quilting-type cotton is perfect for! And I planned the placement of the elastic in the elasticated section wrong, so it did not have the necessary grip in that area.
I'm going to document that attempt even when it failed, because it's still a good demonstration of the principles of woven bras that I discovered along the way. As the Czech saying goes, mistakes are how you learn.
