Duct tape dress forms are fabulous for creating garments that use your natural body shape, but a lot of the costuming I do for myself is for use with a conical (16-early 18th century) corset, or that shape. Now, you CAN corset a normal duct tape double, because they do squish, but they don’t squish the same way that a normal body does. If you’ve ever noticed, when you put a corset on of any type, your flesh is re-arranged as opposed to just squished, like your breasts are pushed up a bit to create more of a shelf, (the type of shelf is determined by the type of corset). A normal duct tape double will not create such a shelf, and sometimes this can effect the way the top part of the bodice lays and how the armscye is affected. This is why I had my Mom help me make my newest duct tape dress form over my favorite corset.
We took photos and I’ve put together a little How-To
Materials needed:
- An old T-shirt (or turtleneck is best)
- Fabric to fill in the neck, and possibly elongate the sleeves
- 2-3 rolls of duct tape
- Craft Scissors to cut the duct tape
- Rag & Nail polish remover to clean the sticky glue off of your scissors (not in instructions, use when the scissors won’t cut through the duct tape anymore)
- Newspaper and/or Polyfill to stuff the double
- Measuring tape or yard stick
- Permanent Marker
- String & Weight for plumb lines
- Heavy wooden hanger
- Strong cardboard (larger than your hips)
- Aluminum Foil
- A REALLY good friend (who won’t start tickling you once you are immobilized)
The first thing you need to do is GO TO THE BATHROOM! You are going to be unable to move your arms and torso for 1-2 hours. Do not drink a lot of liquids before you start.- Put your corset on. Usually when you do a fitting for something, you want to wear all your underpinnings, but for this, anything besides a tank top and your corset may get cut up when you are being cut out of the duct tape.
- Make sure you are in your corset tightened to the proper tightness, that it’s not too loose, or too tight.
Put on your expendable t-shirt or turtle neck (this will be a permanent part of the dress form) and add the neck piece so it fills in the collar, so you have a bit of neck when fitting high collars.
Begin taping horizontally starting above and below the top edge of the corset line, and fill in, keeping the lines smooth, and taut. You need to stand with your hands at your hips so you can fit under the arms and when you make things with sleeves, that you will still be able to lift your arms, and the arm hole won’t be really really low (when I made one for my husband he wouldn’t keep still and kept playing with the dog and his arms got too low, and I cannot fit doublets to it unless they have really large armscyes. 
).
Tape the entire shirt (and up the neck a little ways over the piece of fabric or the turtle neck collar) horizontally, be sure to get tight in around the arms (only do the top 1/4 of the arm or putting clothes on it will be REALLY rough) without cutting off circulation to the hands. Keep the tape taught and keep smoothing it out. When in doubt, use smaller pieces, you can always go over that area again.
Then go over it again vertically.- Reinforce it in any areas that seem thin, or have pointy/curvy areas as these will be under more stress.
We used a yard stick and marked from the floor to the end of the yard stick, so that way when I’m doing hems I can figure out how high I need to hang my dress form using the yard stick as a guide.- Then we marked plumb lines front and back from my neck down (front is optional).
- You will want to mark horizontal lines across the back, these are for piecing it back together.
- You are ready to cut it apart. You will want to cut it in a zig zag pattern across the lines you have made from bottom to neck in the back, making sure that you do not cut the corset or skin.
- Very carefully pull it off.
Do not crush it, and put the hanger inside with the hook coming out of the neck, tape up the back from both inside and outside, matching both the zig zag and the marks you created.- Once it is taped up the back, you can start adding the stuffing of your choice.
- When the dress form is sufficiently stuffed, you can tape around the hook of the hanger at the neckline (don’t pull too much and deform the neck or arms. You just want to cap them off. You will probably want to reinforce the shoulders and neck if you plan to hang your dress form to work on, as these will become stress points (do not store the dress form hanging up if possible.)
Now you will want to figure out where the bottom of the dress form corresponds to your body, and roll up the aluminum foil into a tube, and form the foil to that part of your hips/bottom. This will become your pattern to cut out your card board as a cap for the bottom.- Once you have the cardboard cap cut out, fit it into the space at the bottom of your dress form, and tape it in place, pulling under a little bit of the edges of the dress form, and completely tape it in.
- Name your dress form something fitting. My first was the Lady Anne (for Anne Boleyn). This one is Lady Cate (For Catherine Howard).
(You may also want to put your name and date on the bottom, if you have multiple duct tape doubles running around your house so you can tell who it was made for and how old it is). - YOU’RE DONE!
Duct Tape Dress Forms can be made for Women, Men, (I assume children if you can get them to stand still long enough, but I know mine won’t), corseted, in modern underwear, you can even do a dress form with the top part of legs. We did this for a friend of mine who had to fit a vinyl body suit under poly styrene armor for a costume. After fitting that dress form, we are very close personal friends now… XD ! The difference when doing a non-corseted form, is really just the beginning, you start out with an X between the breasts and form those out first. Otherwise the instructions are pretty much the same. If you are having trouble fitting an area, use smaller pieces, and try turning the tape diagonally and see if that helps. You may need to clip some of the tape to make it fit right at first, then go over a different direction with small pieces to keep it from becoming a weak point.
I hope this helps you out. The first thing I did was try out a kirtle I was having trouble fitting on myself and found out what my problem was right away! Yay for Duct Tape Dress Forms! Yay for Lady Cate!
