18th Century Stays

In costume museums, it is quite usual to see very rich and beautiful clothes. These garments are dreamy and very inspiring but they don't really show what most people would actually wear. It is of course amazing to study and recreate upper class stays and garments, but it is also interesting to browse ordinary fashion! Humble garments can teach us a lot about the techniques of the time. The stays I’m going to study are a good example of 18th mid-century functional stays.

They were given to me by someone who found them in a garage sale in Belgium, so they probably were originally made there… They are an ordinary garment, made of strong and simple materials, and are mostly functional. The stays are quite damaged but have not been altered. The best part: they still have the original built in skirt supports!

I didn't know a lot about 18th century stays, so in order to understand them, I read “L’art du tailleur”, a supplement to the Encyclopédie from 1780.

It gives many details and you can learn a little bit more about the fabrication of stays at the time. This text is also very useful for us to understand the different sorts of stays and I referred to it to clear up some construction details.

Before I begin with the description, I have to warn you: these stays are in quite good condition and many interesting details are hidden. Some other are just impossible to photograph. Because of that, I am not always 100% sure of the construction or the techniques. For example, the lining and the outer fabric hide the foundation fabric and the pattern… however I have tried to show you as many details as I could.

Measurements

Center front length: 30.5cm | 12 in,
Center back length: 36cm | 14 1/4 in,
Waist circumference: 50cm | 19 5/8 in,
Bust circumference: 64cm | 25 1/4 in,
Bust to waist in front: 17cm | 6 3/4 in,
Underarm to waist: 16cm | 6 /14 in,
Strap length: 17cm | | 6 3/4 in,
Neckline width (from one strap to the other): 28 cm | 11 in.

As you can see, these stays are quite small! At first, I even thought they were children's stays, as children did wear stays in the 18th century. However these ones clearly have feminine curves. People were smaller than today and measurements that seem excessively small to us could have been normal back then. These stays must have belonged to a young woman, perhaps a teenage girl.

Materials: Textile

Outer Fabric

It is a linen, undyed and unbleached. In fact, maybe it has been bleached, but now it is beige, like natural flax. The fabric is quite smooth. It has more or less 25 threads per centimeter, both in warp and in weft. Many stays in museums are covered in silk or at least colorful linen; the simplicity of this fabric shows that this garment is not an upper class one. What is quite surprising is that the stitches don’t go through the outer fabric.

Inner Fabric

It seems to be linen as well, a little coarser than the outer fabric. It has 20-22 threads per centimeter.

When you look closer, you can also see little pieces of blue fabric. I think they may be the selvedge of the inner fabric.

Foundation Fabric

This fabric is made of hemp and it is very coarse. The fiber is quite dark, it’s a brownish grey. This kind of fabric was called bougran or treillis in French. The translation is “buckram”, although I’m not sure that actual buckram is exactly the same. Caught between the inner fabric and the lining, the bougran is hidden and I could only have a glimpse of it by drawing aside the outer and inner fabrics. Unfortunately, I was not able to take a picture of it, because of the stay's good condition.

According to “l’Art du tailleur”, old sheets or even old boat sails were sometimes used as bougran! Of course, it could also be made of new fabric. The chosen fabric was gummed and calendered before use.

Lining

The lining is a soft linen, with 18-22 threads per centimeter. Under the straps, a small portion of the fabric was protected from light and dust. It is almost white (once again, I could not take a decent picture…). This made me reconsider my idea that all the fabrics were unbleached. They were probably a clearer beige than they are now, maybe even white. I must also add that I have no idea about the way the stays were stored before today, but it was probably in an attic, with temperature and humidity variations. Linen can easily become oxidized and turn darker. Keep this in mind if you want to reproduce this kind of stays: you can choose natural linen, or even white one.

Other materials

Leather

The leather is yellow. I don’t think it was dyed. It has a velvety texture, like chamois leather. It is extremely damaged, rigid, with stains and tears, so it’s difficult to tell how it really was at the time.

Metal Hooks

In the front, two big hooks are sewn. They are hand forged. It looks like they are made of a copper-iron alloy. They are 4cm long. The metallic rod is 2.5mm in diameter. They were used to maintain the skirts in the right position. They are sewn slightly under the waist, to keep the skirt lower in the front than in the sides.

Bones

From what I can see, it seems to me that they are whale bone. Their color is beige to brown. The bones are more or less 5mm wide. Most of them are vertical and some bones “de dressage” are stitched horizontally on the inside, to help the stays keeping their form. The outer fabric is worn over the bones, which gives an idea of the bone placement.

Paper

There is some paper between the bones and the inner fabric. I’m not sure whether it recovers the entire stays, because I don’t have real access to it (and I don’t want to damage the stays by pushing away the fabric…). Once again, “l’Art du tailleur” gives some precious details about this technique. It says paper was mostly used in the eyelets area, to give it more strength and firmness. And then, there is this very interesting sentence:

“Egalisez les creux entre toutes les baleines […] avec du papier, ou pour plus de solidité, avec du bougran, observant de le bien étager, afin que l’épaisseur se perde insensiblement”

My translation “Equalize the hollows between all the bones […] with some paper. Use buckram for more strength. Pay attention and distribute the paper or buckram in order to get a smooth surface.”

Paper was used to flatten the stays, to remove the unevenness of the bones. I think it is very clever (if you don’t plan on washing your stays…).

Flax Tow

There is no busk in the belly area. The center front is reinforced with whalebone, and the space between the bones seems to be filled with white fiber that could be flax tow. I’m not absolutely sure about that but it makes sense to me, especially after having read the passage about paper and bougran in “l’Art du tailleur”. It could also be paper with long fibers… These fibers must be very compressed because this part of the stays is extremely rigid (see Hallie Larkin's article for a similar construction).

Threads

The threads are beige and brown; they are probably flax or hemp and are quite thick.

Construction

The pattern is very difficult to determine, because most of the foundation layer is hidden. However, here is all the information I managed to get without damaging the stays.

They are made of four main layers:

Outer fabric,
Inner fabric,
Foundation fabric,
Lining.

We can add one layer of paper. All the tension areas are reinforced with leather.

1. First, the structure is given by the inner fabric + the foundation fabric, with paper and bones between them.

2. These layers are bound first with strips of leather, then with fabric.

3. After that, the outer fabric is fastened to the stays: it’s folded inward and stitched with overcast stitch.

4. The problem areas (waist, armpits, tabs, center front) are covered with leather.

5. Finally, the lining is attached, with whip-stitches. This stitches are quite distant from each other, because the lining had to be easily removed and washed. It could even be replaced if necessary

Tabs and Straps

The tabs and straps are not exactly constructed the same way. The small tabs are wrapped in leather. The big tabs are also covered with leather, and they are lined with the same fabric as the stays.

The shoulder straps are partly reinforced with leather, stitched between the foundation fabric and the inner fabric. They are not boned, but the leather gives them structure and stiffness. They are sewn to the stays although I think originally they were laced in the front. It is not the first time I have seen stays with the straps sewn to the body.

Eyelets

Eleven eyelets are hand embroidered on each side of the stays, with the same flax thread used to make the seams. They are 7mm diameter, with a 3mm hole.

The thread is continuous from one eyelet to the other, as you can see on the back.

The eyelets are arranged to get a diagonal lacing (on this photo, the lace is not original).

Skirt Supports

Two small hip rolls are sewn to the stays. They bring some support to the skirts, in order to give the fashionable figure. Sadly, I couldn’t see what they are stuffed with. The padding is very firm, it is possibly flax tow. The rolls are made of 3 layers of linen. The outer linen layers are the same fabric as the outer layer of the stays. A little stuffed half-moon is placed between the two layers, and stitched in place to keep the padded half moon under control. The size of each skirt support is 13cm x 7cm.

Piecing

Just for fun, I wanted to share with you this nice picture of the lining. I think this piecing is my favourite detail of the stays !

Shape and Period

The shape of these stays is very elegant. The back neckline, for instance, is a beautiful square neckline.

When the stays are laced closed, the shape was even more interesting. It is a triangular shape, with a flat back and an angular front. The pictures were taken from different viewing angles.

Can you see the triangle? Of course, on a body the lacing would be looser, so the stays would mould differently. Still, I think it may help us understand how the body was modeled by undergarments.

When Were These Stays Made?

The construction and the use of leather to bind the body and line the tabs seem to be quite common for 18th century stays. Of the stays I had the opportunity to study at the Musée Galliera in Paris, several had these characteristics. Unfortunately they haven't been precisely dated, which doesn’t help to date these stays. Several stays in the Met Museum online collection have also got leather in the tabs, and they date to the late 18th century. However, some older stays from the Met are very close in construction and style to these stays, which makes dating them difficult.

I think these stays could be from the second half of the 18th century, between 1745 and 1780. I found it quite challenging attempt to date these stays, and am still not certain of the exact date. If you have any other clues to evaluate the period of creation of these stays, please share them in the comments!