...
Also popular with costumers of this period is a slip-like
undergarment with the corset-like boned bodice and an underskirt all
sewn
together. Sometimes the bodice of the boned lining comes down to the
natural
waist even though the skirt is set on at the raised level typical of
the period.
A sheer gown can be worn over this.
There are two issues here. One is supporting a petticoat at a level
above the natural waist, to match that of the dress bodice and help the
skirt to hang correctly. The other is bust support/body shaping.
The late 1820s sources I researched for _The Lady's Stratagem_ indicated
a method of supporting the petticoat by shoulder straps, which I've also
seen occasionally on petticoats sold on eBay.
As for body shaping, I found instructions for 13 styles of stays and put
them all in the book. These include half-stays, which go only an inch or
two below the bottoms of the bosom gores/gussets. Half-stays can be made
with variations that enable the wearer to put on the stays more easily,
involving either wide straps or narrow lacings that cross from back to
front. The style of short stays that includes the straplike self-lacing
arrangement, is the kind people who see them in museum catalogs tend to
describe as "like a sports bra." However, half-stays were also made
without self-lacing arrangements, and all the self-lacing arrangements
could be used on full-length stays.
Short stays, with or without a self-lacing arrangement, are recommended
specifically for morning wear (and for early pregnancy). The
middle-class female routine of getting dressed is described in great
detail, garment by garment and accessory by accessory. The assumption
was that even the middle-class housewife got dressed several times a
day. When she got up, she "helped with the first household tasks of the
day," not specified in the sources I used, but it seems by inference
they included helping a servant or servants to prepare breakfast, and
I'd guess some other housework. For this she wore a costume to be seen
only by the immediate family, under which she wore her half-stays. After
these morning tasks were done, she dressed again, this time putting on
her full stays and her garments for either doing morning errands or
staying at home, depending on her schedule. This second costume was
usually not fancy, but it was publicly presentable.
Note that I am not saying that reenactors who prefer to wear half-stays
in public are "inauthentic," and that they shouldn't do it, etc. I'm
just saying that half-stays seem to have had specific uses in the 1820s.
Fran
Lavolta Press
New book on making 1820s clothing!
http://www.lavoltapress.com
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