It's been a long, long time since I posted last...and since that time I have knitted several socks, done some interesting knitted lace patterns from the mid-1800s, and learned a bit about point lace, although I haven't made any yet.But now what I am working on is a set of stays for an outfit ca. 1795. This made me think about the interesting nature of women's support garments.I think that some people think that they are a more modern invention, say renaissance and beyond, but I know that the women of Rome wore garments that were pretty much the equivalent of the modern bra (and in fact, showing naked breasts was so scandalous to the Romans that even erotic art often had women wearing them.)But for the last three or four hundred years stays, corsets and their ilk have an interesting custom of being outerwear and becoming innerwear. In the 1600s, stays were mostly an outerwear garment, wore over the inner shift, and sleaves would lace into them. By the 18th century, they were mostly being worn under outer clothes like jackets or gowns (what we would call dresses). During this time, upperclass ladies, to get the right look, had stays that shaped their torso into an inverted cone. The fashionable look had the shoulders pulled way back. Working class women, of course, couldn't run around without more freedom of movement, but their stays approximated the inverted cone as well, but wear stays of some sort, usually boned, were something all women of good reputation did. I have been told by several sources that loose woman comes from a woman not wearing her stays in public.If it was very hot, you could take off your jacket, and wear your stays in public view (over your shift of course, which looked something like a modern half - or quarter-sleeved nightgown) while you worked at home, and it wouldn't be considered improper at all, just very casual.Towards the end of the century, though, fashions changed, and stays started getting shorter and shorter waisted. The fashions shifted to the chemise dress and empire gown, very high waisted, and worn with much less torso shaping. For awhile there, the stays had shrank into garments that resemble back support bras, or even wrap around garments that really do look a lot like a modern bra, but in two pieces (one for each breast).By this time the stays had moved into a totally under-the-clothes garment, and either as stays, corset, bra, girdle, or all-in-one, stayed that way through the 1980s, when we see a shift develop, first with gym clothing (sports bras meant to wear as outerwear, for example) and then of making formal wear (and some casual wear) garments that are based on vintage stay patterns.) Madonna and company probably encouraged this by wearing underwear decorated or plain as performance clothing, but if you go to any dress pattern catalog today and look at the prom gowns and wedding clothes, you will see many a bodice that once people would have considered a support garment to be worn under the clothes.Thus, we see, what goes around, comes around, but no matter what, made well, all foundations (except sometimes for the most fashion conscious) are reasonably comfortable and offer what we women wear them for...support of bosom and back...and make us have a nicer profile to boot.Meanwhile, back to my stays. Being older, fat, and planning to wear them with a riding habit, I am cording instead of boning...But even so, half done, and on my dress form it looks so pretty that I would like to wear it as an outer garment...so I can understand why the designers are doing it now! posted by Mrs. Stone 1:51 PM . . .
