I started with some hand stitch job, attaching gathered black ribbon strips to the sides.

Then I cut a scrap of black leather and cover the whole back “plate” with it. There’s FABRI-TAC glue there in the picture, but I eventually used E6000 as the project went along. The fabric glue was not strong enough for this job.

Then I added another layer of gathered ribbon trim on top of the first ribbon layer, making sure the side edges of the glued-on leather was covered.

The faux-leather trim with grommets that I bought was great, but the space between one grommet to the next was too wide. So I did some “pleats” and glued the folded parts so the grommets are closer to each other. After that’s done, I glued them to the outer part of the plate’s side edges.

After waiting several minutes for the glue to dry off, I put in the black cord carefully starting from the top, criss-crossing just like I’m about to tie my shoe laces. When I reached the bottom, I tugged the cord lightly to make sure it’s tight enough before forming a knot.

With that, the back part of the DIY Waist Corset Belt was done! Woooo!!!

After cutting the three pieces (taking into account the seam allowance), I finished off the pieces by using some bias tape. On my subsequent work on the later fabric choices, I no longer used the bias tape and instead just increase the seam allowance for double folding.

These are the three fabric pieces for the left, front, and right sections of the belt’s front.

Next, I used the always-reliable E6000 to glue in one half of sew-on snaps on the corners of the belt’s front (wrong side).

I sewed the other half of those snaps on the fabric pieces (right side). Basically, I wanted to snap on those fabric pieces on the wrong side of the belt’s front.

This is what the front of the belt looked like after it’s all said and done!

The Result: DIY Waist Corset Belt

Yay! I definitely wore it proud on the first day of J-Pop Summit 2014 :)
This is the first fabric choice I made, the purple version.

Outfit details: ASOS white shirt, Forever 21 high waisted skirt with suspenders, UNIQLO tights, Coclico boots. Marc by Marc Jacobs sunglasses, black vintage ribbon (worn as a tie), Longchamp bag. Purple hair tips with Kevin Murphy Color Bug (I personally don’t recommend it for black Asian hair like mine. Too much work, too little reward.)

After J-Pop Summit was over, I still wanted to wear this belt again for Fashion On The Square 2014 finale runway show, which took place the week after.

So I took out some kimono fabric scraps, chose one deep green fabric with nice “cracked ground” details, ironed some fusible interfacing on its wrong side, cut them, and made three fabric pieces out of it.

This is the green fabric version:

And this is how I wore it to FOTS 2014:

Outfit details: Isda & Co tank top (I’m so sad the designer retired already), Alembika pants, Melissa boots, Harputs jacket.

I had so much fun creating the interchangeable fabric options for this DIY Waist Corset Belt that I made the third option: a textured deep blue kimono fabric with white twig details.

I was so happy that after it’s done, the twig seems to seamlessly continue from the front section to the right section, even though the pieces were cut out from different fabric sections.

I haven’t had the chance to wear the DIY Waist Corset Belt with the blue fabric option yet, but I imagine I will soon. I also have so many more fabric options planned in my head, so as long as I can buy more size #3 sew-on snaps and just use one half of them, the possibility of fabric options for this waist corset belt is endless!

What do you think about this DIY refashion project? I’m really loving this waist corset belt; it’s highly stylish, very versatile, and really easy to snap on and off. I’m really glad I did not give that wide belt away for donation several months ago.