A Foray into Historical Corsetry: 18th Century Stays

I’ve done quite a few spinning demo’s so far this year, and it’s been great fun chatting wool and teaching people how to spin and weave. While my natural style seems to be ever evolving into eccentric wool witch, one of the demo’s was a family event at the end of May, and somehow the witchy side of my wardrobe didn’t feel colourful enough for the occasion. Thankfully, I do own some brighter autumnal colours and my linen ‘pirate shirts’ are handy bases for any outfit, but I felt I should jazz it up a bit more.

I’ve been wanting to make more of my wardrobe with particular focus on historical clothing and Mandy Barrington’s book Stays & Corsets has been sitting on my bookshelf for the past five years waiting for me to pluck up the courage and have the time to make one. I’ve fallen in love with most of the corsets in the book, but have a particular soft spot for the 1735-1750 boned bodice from the National Trust’s collection since it was designed to be worn as a top layer, has beautiful lacing front and back, and the silhouette looks like it came from The Shire. So, with three weeks to go before the event in question and never having made a corset before, I decided this spinning demo was the perfect catalyst to start the project I’d been dreaming of making ‘one day’ – what could possibly go wrong?!…

The making of these stays was incredibly chaotic; I didn’t have a table free so my sewing machine and I were on the floor and since this was my first attempt at corsetry, I didn’t want to add in additional stress by trying to film it, so there is no ‘making of’ video this time, but I did remember to take the odd picture throughout and there is a short video of the final reveal.

Drafting The Pattern

Mandy Barrington’s book is a guide on drafting patterns for historical corsets; there are instructions on how to take a table of measurements and turn them into a paper pattern, but no guidance on how to make the garment (for guidance on that I watched copious Youtube videos, scoured other sources and ‘followed my nose’ when I wasn’t quite sure). Personally, I find drafting my own pattern to be easier than working with a commercial pattern for the following reasons:

1. A pattern that is drafted to my specific measurements is much more likely to fit without much adjustment after making a mock-up than the standardised sizing on commercial sewing patterns. The extra time it takes at the start saves time in the putting together.
2. By following the instructions on the pattern draft, I can understand exactly which measurements as being used where. If there is a problem with the fit later, it’s much easier for me to see where adjustments can be made; if one measurement needs to change I know what else in the pattern used that measure and might need adjusting too.
3. Self drafted patterns are net – I have to add my own seam allowance which makes it easier for me to sew as I use a vintage sewing machine without seam allowance guides.
4. I really hate flimsy tissue paper patterns. Even if you trace one size out to be able to use it again, they catch, rip, wrinkle and never fold back up as flat as they arrived. Drafting my own pattern means I can use thick paper which will last much longer and I avoid the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth!

I won’t go into great detail on the drafting process since it’s in the book; you first draft a basic block (which you can mock up in fabric to check the fit) before using these points to create the stays pattern. There are step-by-step instructions with clear diagrams, and I found it really easy to use.

Mocking Up

I made a quick single layer mock-up in old cotton sheet using string to lace myself into it. Usually you’d use a thicker/stiffer fabric to check the fit of a fitted corset/stays as it will hold the shape better, however since this was my first time using this pattern, I wanted to check I wasn’t way off before cutting up anything better. I was initially pretty happy with the fit, but made a note to add a little extra height to the centre front panel to better cover the bust. I also wasn’t quite sure on my fabric choice (a green cotton backed with a heavy linen), so decided I would make up the stomacher (the part that slots behind the lacing at the front) properly with boning since there shouldn’t be any fit issues with that and I could try out the colour on a smaller section of fabric.

That completed, I decided to try the mock-up on again with the stomacher in place and it was then I could see that something wasn’t quite right. The stomacher had helped more correctly position the cotton mock-up and I could now see the waist wasn’t sitting on my waistline. So I decided to re-take the length measurements and discovered a 4cm discrepancy in the nape to waist measurement (I’d asked someone else to take this measurement as I didn’t think measuring my own back would be accurate – ironically it was!). Happily, very little of the pattern drafting used this measurement, so I was able to cut the pattern pieces at the waist line and add in 4cm of extra paper, re-drawing the lines at the edges of the pattern so the new points connected at the right angle AND this also fixed my previous issue of the bust line being a bit low since the whole panel was raised from the waist!

Making the Stays

I didn’t have time to make another mock-up in stiffer fabric with boning and then make the stays (which would essentially be making two garments), so I decided to make one ‘mock-up’ but treat it as the real thing so that if all went to plan it would be good enough to finish and wear. I selected a thick brown/green cotton fabric for the outside and a white cotton for the lining, since I had enough of both to recut pieces if needed. It also complimented the green stomacher well (the stomacher wasn’t too short to be used and I added some trim around the edges to give it a little extra width – it isn’t too noticeable).

I cut out all the pieces in both fabrics, leaving more seam allowance than was nessecary so that I had some flexibility if I needed to adjust the seams (I felt this would be less wasteful than recutting whole pieces). Linings and outer fabric were then tacked (basted) together around the seam lines before the boning channels were stitched down.

After all the sections of the stays were stitched together with boning channels I removed the tacking stitches and then spent several hours threading the cut ends of thread to the back of the stays and hiding all the tails in the lining.

Then I could begin to assemble the stays. The example in Barrington’s book appears to have been stitched so the seam duplicates as a boning chanel running along the edges of each piece, so I aimed to replicate this on my version since it would also be easier to match up the chalk marks accurately by folding the seam allowance of one piece over and matching right sides together.

I repeated this for all the pieces until both sides of the stays were complete. I then cut my synthetic baleen boning¹ to fit the channels, filed the sharp ends and slotted it into the boning channels. I also attached the shoulder straps at this point (these I adapted slightly from the pattern as I wanted to have ties at the front).

I then trimmed away the excess seam allowance (I’ll use the scraps for something in the future), finished the inside seams with thin cotton tape, hand embroidered the front and back eyelets and cut the hip tabs (and I didn’t document any of it until it was all done – oops!)

Finishing Touches

I raided my ribbon stash to find a trim to bind the raw edges with and ended up choosing a grey/green velvet which I managed to manouvre around the corners with some mitre-ing. Finally, I made eyelets on the shoulder straps and front panels and added ribbon ties (these can be replaced depending on the occasion). I grabbed some black cotton cord to loosely lace through the back and, with some help to adjust the back lacing, laced myself into the stays at the front (after the back was correctly fitted I was able to knot it in the right position, so I don’t need assitance getting into the stays anymore). And with that (and just in the nick of time), I had a pair of stays to wear to my demo!

For a first attempt, these were a very wearable mock-up that I plan to get a lot of use from. Interestingly, the day I wore this outfit happened to be the first of the UK heatwaves, so it also allowed me to conduct a little experiment. There is a myth often reinforced by media that corsets/stays were uncomfortable suffocating garments, however, if that were true women would not have worn them as supportive garments for hundreds of years as they got on with their everyday lives. While one could choose to tight lace if they so desired, the same discomfort can be endured wearing modern undergrarments if the wearer chooses. While actual baleen might not have been quite as flexible as the synthetic versions available today, the photo below illustrates just how bendy the stomacher is to show that I have much more movement than it might appear.

I was however, incredibly curious to see for myself how stays compare to the modern bra. I wore a linen shirt underneath the stays with a cotton skirt and was no hotter than I would have been in any other clothing that day despite wearing a close fitting garment, in fact I think the better posture I had from wearing the stays helped me to get through the suffocating heat. Overall, the stays were very comfortable and I’ll definitely be exploring some more historical corsetry in future!

Happy Sewing!