Xena: Warrior Princess Costume DIY tutorial: Part One: The Corset

So. I decided I needed to be Xena. Many of us raised in the same time period have had this thought, and I decided, as a dedicated crafter and cosplayer, that I needed to make this thought a reality. I did so much research, looking for other tutorials and tips. I'd never made armor before, but since Xena doesn't wear anything like a full suit of armor I thought it might be a good learning experience.  In my research I found a few things, but nothing like as detailed in the style I wanted as far as I could find. This is going to be just a walkthrough of what I did. I'm hoping my walkthrough can help anyone else also wanting to be Xena. This is the first part covering the corset. The other parts are here:

Part One: The Corset  ***You are here***
Part Two: The Skirt and The Boots
Part Three: The Main Armor Pieces: The Breastplate and the Backplate
Part Four: The Accessory Armor Pieces: The Shoulders, The Armbands, and the Kneeguards
Part Five: The Weapons
Part Six: The Hair, The Eyes, The Makeup and Playing The Part

For the record, this is not a simple costume. (Nor is it terribly inexpensive. I made a conscious effort not to add up how much I spent on it.) I'm assuming you have a solid grasp on sewing and basic crafting so we're not starting from ground zero here. I'm assuming you own a sewing machine and scissors and several other pretty common crafting tools. I'll try and break it down as much as I can, but I may miss things, I am assuming you're like me and you just have a collection of crafting stuff. Also my material amounts are not going to be exact because I can't tell you exactly how much you'll need for your size. I will approximate roughly how much I used, you will have to add or subtract based on your size. Too much is always better than not enough, that's been my motto my whole life.  For reference, I am 6 feet tall and roughly 160-170 lbs. Tall and athletic built, but not waif thin. Keep that in mind when comparing how much I used of something to what you might need.

***IMPORTANT** I STRONGLY recommend you read all the way through these posts before beginning.  I spent a solid month working on this in most of my free time and it was a lot of trial and error. I learned a lot as I went along and there were many things I could have done better based on what I learned. If you read through this first hopefully you can avoid some of the error parts of my trial and error process. By the time I was done I was exhausted but proud of myself despite the mistakes. It's totally doable. It just helps to know as much a possible before starting.

***ANOTHER IMPORTANT THING*** So, multiple times throughout this set of posts I recommend spraying things with Plastidip before painting. After wearing this costume twice my paint job took some not insignificant damage in various places, and I have come to realize that the places that took the most damage were pieces that had been sprayed with Plastidip. Now, I'm aware that the nature of costumes is to take wear and tear, that's just how it works. But I'm thinking maybe things would be tougher if I had just done a black paint base coat instead. In the end, it's up to you how you want to do it, this is just what I observed after making and wearing this costume.

Really, anyone who wants to be a badass warrior princess should be able to do so.

First of all, this is a really good start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvTOZ3-guoc&list=LLKjLD2dXDJk7T7f-99DuCDA&index=9&t=0s

This is what I wanted my costume to look like in the end, but she flies through it so fast, so I wanted more details. I must have watched this video 15 or 20 times while making this, since I was hoping to look at least somewhat as good as she does in the end.

So. Let's start. We all know what we want to accomplish here.

The details will kill you. 

Let's break it down.

PART ONE

THE CORSET

Materials:

1 yd pleather, leather, whatever you plan to use for your corset
matching brown thread

1 yd canvas
1 yd lining fabric

20-30 size 0 antique gold grommets

grommet setting tool

Medallion

4 silver O rings about 1 1/2" across

~5 yds cord for lacing
steel boning
metal hook (to hang the chakram from)
2 rivets
leather punch
steel boning cutters
rubber mallet

For the record, you can buy a handy little hardware kit that has all the hardware here:

https://www.toddscostumes.com/costumes/xena-warrior-princess-costumes/xena-costume/xena-dress-hardware-kit/

I suppose you don't have to buy the kit, O rings can come from the hardware or craft store, you can order grommets online, along with the setting tool, and I'm sure if you're creative enough you could come up with your own solution for the chakram hook and the medallion, but I just didn't have a really good plan for those. The rivets and the grommets that come in the kit are too small for my taste, so I did replace those, but everything else made my life much, much easier.

Xena's corset is more specific than you think. You totally can just buy a basic dark brown corset and I suppose that will get the job done, but if you want it to look right you'll have to make it yourself.

So, to get the correct look, you will need to make a pattern. My preferred method is duct tape. There are dozens of tutorials about it but the concept is simple. Cover yourself in plastic wrap, then cover yourself in duct tape and draw on the seams you need for the garment you're making. If you want a full pattern you will need a partner to get the back, or a dressform in your size to work with. In my case, I just had my boyfriend help me out. I wore a regular corset underneath the duct tape to give myself the shape I wanted for the final product. I definitely wanted that slimming effect of the corset, I just don't have Lucy Lawless's waist. Cut the duct tape off, cut it at the lines you drew, and you have a pattern, minus seam allowances. If you want a little more detail, try this:

https://offbeatbride.com/diy-corset-pattern/

LABEL IT BEFORE YOU CUT IT APART. It's so, so easy to forget which way was up and which piece was which. Label and number everything. There's no such thing as too much labeling.

The important details to note are the V shape in the front, and the fact that the center front piece should curve up and around both sides of the cup. I realize in my picture here it only curves around one side and I had to fix that later. The V in front tapers from the outer edge of the breast to about an inch or two from the belly button. The bottom of the corset should hit roughly an inch or two lower than your hips, tapering slightly in front. The back goes up just above where a bra band would be and the cups will come up just barely covering where a bra cup would be. Gotta have that cleavage, right? The cups are a band across the top with a seam straight down the middle. The top edge of the band will be mostly straight and the bottom will be curved.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Xena-Costume/

Something like this, although I found personally the cup shape of this one was too rounded for me. Mine just don't.... fill it out. Sigh. Adjust as needed.

You will also notice a circle of duct tape beneath the pattern. I used one side of the duct tape form for the pattern, and on the other side I drew a circle around the breast as a rough pattern for the cups of the breast plate. That's for later use. We're talking about the corset right now.

So, I have a basic knowledge of corset making, but you don't really need that to do this. I'm not going to do a full corset making tutorial here, there are lots around on the internet and I'm just not an expert. It's really just sewing the pieces together and using the seam allowance to make tubes of fabric for boning. If you want more specific details on how corsets work my favorite tutorial is here:

https://foundationsrevealed.com/index-of-articles/free/beginner/375-how-to-make-a-corset

Although I think this tutorial makes separate tubes for the boning, which I've never really cared for, too much effort for me, I much prefer to have wide seam allowances that I can just sew down for boning channels.

Make a mockup first based on your pattern. This part is so important. I know it seems wasteful if you're not a professional seamstress. But nothing makes sure of an accurate fit like a mockup. Add seam allowances, sew the mockup, put it on and make sure everything fits the way you want. If you plan to add boning to the corset I advise 1" seam allowances, which I realize seems like a lot, but it makes sure you can use the extra fabric as boning channels.  I have some basic cheap eyelets and an eyelet press for quick and easy lacing of corset mockups. It's not a bad idea to add some plastic boning for shape as well if you plan to use steel boning in your final piece, which I did, but I tend to be too lazy to add boning to mockups. It's a bad habit, don't be like me. It resulted in trouble for this costume. In my final piece the cups ended up too big and the top edge of the corset is too loose on me. Not big enough to have a problem, but I could have been more careful with the mockup. 

Once everything fits, take apart your mockup and use it as a pattern for your final fabric. Mine was just a cheap vinyl pleather I found at Walmart. For the corset I only needed about a yard or so. I also cut it out in some basic canvas I found in a clearance bin, and some thin black cotton lining fabric.  If you've never worked with pleather before, it's important to note that you can't undo seams in this fabric. It's not regular fabric, sewing punches permanent holes in it and if you have to back up, the fabric is basically ruined. Be really really sure when you sew this. That's the reason I backed up the fabric with canvas, I was worried that the stress on seams of a corset would simply tear the pleather, so I layered it with canvas to reinforce it and prevent that. 

With your basic pleather, every seam will need to be topstitched, you can't iron pleather because it will just melt. Top stitch your seams flat, and then you can sew your boning channels. Because of the permanence of sewing on pleather, I wanted to be perfectly certain that my boning channels were perfectly straight and neat. I figured out that for my 1/4" spiral steel bones I needed 3/8" channels, so I took strips of painter's tape and cut it to exactly 3/8" using my rotary cutter, and then laid those strips of tape on either side of every seam.

I then stitched along the edge of the tape, resulting in perfectly straight, perfectly sized boning channels.

For the record, 3/8" wide painter's tape totally exists, and I definitely bought it after this experience, those seams are beautiful and I don't want to have to cut tape strips every time I want to do this. It's on Amazon, I got it here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K3ECIW0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Add a waist tape if you want, put the boning in the channels and sew the lining in, make sure everything lines up neatly. I have such a problem with liners, they never seem to fit no matter how careful I am with cutting and sewing. This one actually worked out okay for some reason, which was a relief. I buy my steel boning for corsets from this website:

https://corsetmaking.com/

I buy it in 10 yard rolls and I bought a boning cutter as well, and just cut it to the length I need. I usually use steel boning tips or teflon plumber's tape to cover the sharp cut ends. Or a combination of the two, it keeps the tips from falling off.

I added a few inches of pleather to the center back, sewing it right sides together and flipping it to the inside to reinforce the fabric for the grommets. I also added two boning channels on each side, one on either side of where the grommets were going to go. Adding the pleather also meant I didn't have to worry about finishing the edges on the center back edges. I added the grommets at this point, 12 on each side. I used size 0 in antique gold that I also bought from corsetmaking.com, as well as the setting tool. You just hammer them in, it's not complicated.

You can get them here:

https://corsetmaking.com/grommet-washer-sz-0-antique-brass-dozen.html

The setting tool I use is here:

https://corsetmaking.com/grommet-setting-kit-size-0.html

So, normally I would use a tailor's awl to stretch holes in the fabric for my grommets, I prefer not to punch holes to as to not weaken the fabric. Unfortunately, pleather doesn't want to play that game. It would just rip if I tried to stretch it that far. So instead I used my leather punch at the smallest possible hole I could fit the shaft of the grommet through to try and make sure it was snug. It worked just fine.

I bound the top and bottom edges by cutting a long strip of pleather and sewing it on like bias tape. I just sort of assumed that pleather doesn't have a grain or a bias so I didn't bother to make actual bias tape. I could be wrong, I don't know, I didn't try. If you happen to know better and wish to make actual bias tape, feel free. I made my assumptions and ran with them. There is a fold in the V between the cups along the bust line of the binding, but other than that I didn't have any trouble with it.

So, next comes the shoulder straps. I basically just put the corset on and marked it where my bra straps hit it. Make sure you actually put it on, just holding it up to yourself will not give you an accurate measurement. I ended up having to take a full two inches off of my straps to get them to actually touch my shoulders. In the end mine were about 11 inches long, not counting a little extra to fold over and sew down around the O rings.

For the actual straps, I attempted to sew inside out tubes and turn them right side out and realized almost immediately that that was going to be ridiculously frustrating, pleather really doesn't want to do that. So instead I sewed it right side out really close to the edge of the fabric, flattened the tube out with the seam in the center of the back, and top-stitched it along both edges. An important note about the straps- they are wider on top of the shoulders than they are where they meet the corset. Mine are less wide in the middle than they were because I had to cut out the middle to shorten them.

Next up was the chakram hook. I really didn't know how I was going to do this, so this is one of the places where Todd's Costumes kit was super handy. It appears to be a flat strip of metal covered in a leather like fabric, that wasn't too far off from the color of my fabric, so that was nice.

It's kind of hard to see, but it came pre-punched with two holes at one end. I used my leather punch and punched holes right next to the side seam of the corset and riveted it to the corset, and then bent it into a U shape with a pair of pliers. It works great.

The last thing was the little medallion thingy on the front. Again, I had no plan for how I would do this. I suppose if you had some sculpting skill you could make something out of foam or clay or something? But you need to keep in mind that it goes on the front of the stomach so it needs to be flexible. If it's stiff it's going to have a hard time staying attached, or risk breaking. The one from Todd's Costumes is a nice flexible rubbery substance, although it does come in a coppery color, which wasn't going to match anything, so I sprayed it with a coat of Plastidip and gave it a layer of antique gold Rub N Buff and airbrushed it to age it a bit, and then glued it on with E6000. All these were selected specifically to not have a problem with the needed flexibility. I really didn't want to worry about it falling off or cracking paint.

Also if you do want to try making one yourself, the only help I can offer is this pattern:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Xena-Costume/

Good luck with that. I have no help for you. It's too much for me when I have an easy out.


I ended up using just basic craft cord I got from the craft store to lace it up. I wanted to use this cheap leather cord I bought from Walmart but Protip: Cheap cord is cheap. It's full of weak spots that snap at the slightest tension and wouldn't even pretend to hold a corset. All the places I did end up using it for this costume are all just for show, it can't do any actual work. It's very important that your cord for lacing a corset is strong enough to hold up.

In the end, you should have something like this:

Congrats! You now have a Warrior Princess corset!

Now, on to the next part!

Part Two: The Skirt and The Boots