At 23:52 10/02/2006, you wrote:
Have you seen the "Three Musketeers" and the "Four Musketeers" with Michael
York, Richard Chamberlain, and Oliver Reed? Talk about costumes!!! They are
amazing, and they have recently become available on DVD. Although again,
Raquel Welch's costumes were designed differently from all the rest, and are
not authentic. But very pretty.
Gail Finke
This is the period in which I specialize and I have never seen such
good costuming in a film. Completely ignore everything Raquel Welch
is wearing and the rest are amazing. The Queen's costumes were
taking almost line for line from some of her portraits, and so were
the King's. There are a multitude of tavern and town scenes that I
recognize from paintings, also.
The corsetry of this time is an unknown. The only existant corsetry
between 1603 and 1650 is a bodice in the V&A with a boned lining,
although I have heard rumors of a corset tentively dated to 1635
having recently been found within an English farmhouse wall. From
extensive study of the visual evidence, it's pretty clear that they
wore some sort of foundation garment, because while the dresses and
necklines have a more natural, rounded look than previously, they
are still very smooth and supported. My own personal theory is that
some women discarded their corsets and went with boned linings in
their dresses, but most probably all of them didn't. Just look at
how many women still wore bras during the 1970's "braless"
era. Again, my theory from experimenting with the shape and boning
placement for corsets under these styles, is that it's something
between the very flat fronted Elizabethan styles, and the very
rounded, off the shoulder style of the 1660's. The corsets I wear
with my 1635 dresses are cut much like the Elizabethan effigy
corset, but with a higher back, higher waist, tabs cut in a piece
with the body like the 1660's design, and horizontal (actually
slightly diagonal) boning at the center front neckline. It seems to
work pretty well and gives me more of a rounded front shape than the
Elizabethans, without looking too late.
Disclaimer: most of the above are my opinions and theories. If
anyone has knowlege of existant garments that I don't, I'd love to
know about it.
There are boned bodices in the Museum of London, but manly from the
1650's. I recently looked at bodices and a beautiful pair of stays
from the 1670's. There are museums in England apart from the V &A and
the Mof L that have boned bodices I am sure. Possibly Bath has one,
and maybe Platt Hall in Manchester, which also has a pair of 17th
century stays I believe. I will post the name of a book listing
existing garments in British museums when I can find it.
Suzi
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