Regency corsets/stays

 When the typical rococo dresses were swept out by the french revolution, the new, "classical" empire line dresses came a new shape of underwear, 

While through most of the 18th century the upturned conical shape was fashionable, with straight lines, without much curves, the Napoleonic/regency era, the fashionable silhuette was more like a column, and the column "head". The passphrase was "lift and separate", in other words, the aim was to push up the boobs as high as possible.

Since the waistlines were high, just below the breats, noone really saw the true waistline of women. (This is partly why the scene in the very first episode of Bridgerton, where mama Featherington is pulling the corset thight and here daughter is panting: "But mother I can't breath"... Since the emphasis were on the breasts, noone cared about waists, no sense in sinching them. 

This was the time, when women (and seamstresses, manutamakers/dressmakers, taylors( were experimenting with many different types of stays and corsets, like the criss-cross-ey foldover style:

The really short ones, reminding us today's sports bras.

Or the ones with longer lines, not to make the waist thinner, but to smooth out the lines under those (sometimes) very thin dresses.

My friend Anna asked me to make her a long lined pair, so I did: 

Look at the horizontal bones, that support the breasts from under, and the little triangle gores, that are almost like the cups of a modern bra.

But before all these styles developed, there was a period, when from the 18th century stays with the rigid, straight lines:

Curves started to develop, and first they tried to modify these stays to leave more space for boobs, and support them with bones:

These are pretty much like the ones I made for myself this summer.

and then with cup-like inserts:

I wanted to try this style for years, especially, because from all the stays and corsets, I find the 18th century ones the most comfortable. Since we had two events in the Napoleonic era, our group decided that we will do this period in the Savaria festival as well. However, when I made my old stays , they were just good enough... almost too big... they worked when I gained even more weight, but since I lost some, they are almost falling off me... It was high time to make new ones. My rose dress is more very late 1790-ies fashion than early 1810's, I thought, it is the perfect solution. 

I used the pattern I bought from an Etsy shop (Corsets by Caroline), watched some tutorials on youtube, and off I went to sew.

I really like them, though if/when I make another one, there will be a few small things I would tweak, but generally, for a corset, it fits fairly well (especially considering that fitting is not my strong suit, and there was noone to help me with the fitting).