This corset sensor was made for a performance of the Helix by Michela Pelusio

It uses eeonyx stretch fabric as stretch sensor to detect the movement of one’s stomach when breathing in. On this corset, there are 3 strips to take different part of the stomach. This is due to the fit of the corset, it changes which part of the corset stretches the most when breathing.
I have tried with one long stretch fabric on the entire front stretch part, but as you get a lot of parallel resistance, it does not detect good. It was the best when I cut the eeonyx fabric into small pieces and apply as few separate sensors.

Then the sensor was read with Arduino lilypad and sent to Helix controller Arduino via Xbee.

The main part of the corset is made with fake leather I found at Modulor. To prevent the corset pieces to tear a part (which was the case for the first prototype), I used extra fabric between the seam to enforce the sewing connection.