On 14/05/2006, at 1:07 PM, susannah eanes wrote:
I am making one last effort to find an extant set of regency era
unboned stays (or having only a few bones). In my travels I have
seen
only 4 or 5 of these, and all are very different from one another. I
do have one pattern a colleague is sharing for a front-closing
version, but would really like to find at least 3 good examples that
could reasonably be made by the average seamstress with a good
pattern. If anyone knows of a set in either a private or public or
any museum collection that we could go & study, that would be really
nice.
If anyone has access to or can share information on these, I would
appreciate it. We are working on this pattern for docent use at a
living history site c.
1800-1815.
thanks for any and all information,
susannah
Fig & Folly Historic Patterns
www.fig-n-folly.com
Hi, Susannah,
The Kyoto Costume Institute sponsored an exhibit many years ago which
travelled the world, called "Revolution in Fashion, 1715-1815." The
original catalogue from that exhibit has become a seriously expensive
collector's item, has now been re-printed, and, I have heard, is on
the
internet somewhere, although I haven't checked it out personally.
The catalogue has at least 3 pages of corsetry covering/bracketing
your
period, so I've listed here the two most relevant. Page 101 (with
description on page 152) shows four corsets from the late 18th C
(three
from 1785, including one child's corset; and one from 1790). All of
these pieces have boning in them to some degree, although one has only
a little boning supplementing quilting.
Page 103 shows three corsets and a brassiere from 1820 or so
(commentary for this page is also written up on page 152, along with a
picture of the brassiere laid out flat). The 1820 corset is
stiffened
only with cording quilted in. The other three pieces are dated only
as "early nineteenth century." The brassiere is described as "boned
at bust" only; the other two corsets rely only on cord-quilting for
their shapes.
Page 152 also has a French print of 1809, called "The Fad for
Corsets,"
showing four women being laced into their corsets by their(?)
menfolk.
The corset shapes are a bit exaggerated, but the picture is clear
enough to give you some idea of corsetry between the eras represented
by the photo examples.
There are no credits given for the owners of any of these; it's
fairly
safe to assume that they all (still) belong to the Kyoto Costume
Institute.
Hope this helps!
Beth Schoenberg
--- in warm and overcast autumnal Canberra
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