I'd just like to say a few words on boning. Plastic boning that is usually marketed as 'artificial whalebone' does work, and works similarly to whalebone - which was initially steamed to shape, and also conformed to the wearers shape over time.
But like whaleboned (and 'featherboned') corsets of the time period they used a lot more boning channels than we do.
Metal bones (either spring steel or spiral) only really need to be used if you are a./ tight lacing, and this means anything that's a reduction of more than 2-3" (5-8cm) or b./ have very large breasts to support.
The plastic boning available in Spotlight comes in 2 sorts: Rigelene ™ which is 5 lines of plastic woven into a strip, and I wouldn't even use it in a strapless bodice, and the other sort which is solid plastic in a casing which will work in a corset, as long as you're not trying to tightlace, and you put more bones in than just one on every seam. If you do use this sort of boning, you can buy more that the total length of your bones, and then you cut each 'bone' 1-1.5" (3-7cm) longer than you need. Push the bone out of the casing a bit and trim it to the correct size, then you can poke the bone back in the casing and you will have enough casing to turn over each end to encase the bone.
Most of the problems people have with commercially available corsets with plastic boning are usually because they they have tightened the corset beyond it's 'weight bearing' limits, or the distortion is because the pattern is not actually shaped for their body. (There's a reason that the historical corset adverts have a dozen or more different corsets - it's because women are not all the same shape.) Whereas most modern suppliers will have maybe 4 (at most) different cuts of corset.
Looking at the pic I would agree that she is wearing a boned garment. If it were a seperate garment underneath, then the black garment could certainly be done up with hooks and eyes (or an invisible zip) as there would be no strain put on it.
As you are trying to make it as one garment, to get the same look you will need to have either lacing in the back or lacing in the front if it will be covered by the neck piece. You won't get the same snug fit otherwise - to use hooks and eyes will need some slack so you can actully hook them together, and a zipper won't take that kind of strain (though the really chunky ones do hold better than a normal dress zip).
I would recomend the minimum you could do is one layer of a medium-heavy weight fabric (similar to a denim weight) and if you need to use the plastic boning from Spotlight, either use tape (not bias binding) to make you own casings, or use the method described above, and stitch them to the inside of the corset. Then make up the black layer and attach it to the corset layer. This will show minimal boning ridges and still give you a similar silhouette. You'll still need to work out if you're going to have the lacing in the front or back and you can use the seam where you join the black layer to the corset layer at the lacing edge for the casing for the bones there. I would also recommend you put a casing on each seam line and another casing in the middle of each pattern piece.
You'll get longer life out of your corset if you use an awl to make the hole for the metal grommets, rather than punching the hole in the fabric too. Adding a waist tape before you sew on your boning will add to the longevity as well.
I buy my artifical whalebone from Farthingales (a Canadian supplier)
http://www.farthingales.on.ca/plastic_bones.php - they also have some instructions on sewing a corset here
http://www.farthingales.on.ca/corset_class.html and an overview here
http://www.farthingales.on.ca/corset.htmI hope all of this has helped.
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I'll probably go to spotlight to get the boning and lining tomorrow. 
But she does have a separate corset underneath. 
) and you find them in your hardware store. They come in lots of different widths and lengths, and colours, though my local only stocks black. I found a picture to give you a better idea of what you're looking for
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