This entry is a summary of the review video “Blue Sweetheart ‘Oiseau’ overbust (with chiffon hips) Review”. If you would like more complete information and side notes about the corset, you can watch the video on YouTube here:
Fit, length | Center front is 11″, from peak of the bust to the bottom is 14″ and the sides are about 15.5 inches. I’d recommend this corset for someone with a very short torso, or 5’2” or under. The silhouette is a very gentle hourglass – it does cinch me in a couple of inches, and the chiffon on the hips creates the illusion of wider hips which may be great for those who are looking to fill out any boyish figure. |
Material | Blue areas are 2 layers – the outer brocade and the inner cotton twill. On the hips, there are three layers – black satin covered in the gathered chiffon, and once again lined in the black cotton twill. |
Construction | 6 panel pattern. Panels are top-stitched at the seams, and then internal boning channels laid down, made of black twill. |
Binding | Binding at top and bottom are made from commercial black satin bias cut ribbon. It’s machine stitched on both sides, folded under nicely on the front and then topstitched to catch the rest of the binding on the underside. Also has 6 garter tabs. |
Waist tape | Internal waist tape made from 1” wide single-faced satin ribbon. It’s secured down at the boning channels. Far too high to actually be useful for me. |
Modesty panel | Unboned modesty panel, 8 inches wide made from polyester pinstripe on the outside and black twill on the underside. No placket beneath the busk. |
Busk | Slightly heavy duty, almost 1″ on each side. Stiffer than a standard flexible busk. 14″ long with 6 pins. |
Boning | 14 steel bones in this corset not including the busk. Single boned on the seams. The two bones that curve over the bust are made of spiral steel; all the other bones in this corset are spring steel. The bones on the sides stop well above the hip, so this style may be comfortable for those who don’t like the feeling of bones over the hips in longline corsets. |
Grommets | There are 24, 2-part size #00 grommets (12 on each side), finished in nickel. The grommets are sturdy with moderate size lip around, there is no fraying around the material, they’re not pulling out. |
Laces | Black flat nylon braided shoe-lace style. Very strong, grips fairly well. It has a little bit of spring. They are resistant to fraying and catching. |
Price | Currently $164 USD (£105 in UK). |
Final Thoughts:
I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting when I bought this. It looked amazing on the website. I thought that the chiffon would simply accentuate the waist-hip ratio, but I wasn’t anticipating that the chiffon pieces would come up so high on the torso – in profile, the fluffy chiffon pieces actually make my abdomen look as if it’s protruding. It also doesn’t help that, in order to keep everything PG, I have to hike the corset up so that its waist tape is 2-3 inches above my natural waist. This is both uncomfortable and it looks terrible with my figure. On a person with a smaller bust and much shorter torso, I think this corset would sit better.
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