Decorative Arts Trust

TRUST RESEARCH GRANT: "STAYS"

Thanks to the Decorative Arts Trust, Winterthur Fellow Samantha Dorsey was able to travel to numerous American History Museums on the east coast. There she documented and examined women’s Eighteenth Century stays with an American provenance to better enable her to study and contextualize the physical philosophy behind their use during the period.

Figure 1. A Pair of Women’s Eighteenth Century Stays, 1770–1785.
Winterthur Museum. Photo by Author.

“Stays” were the essential female garment during the eighteenth century (Fig.1). They functioned much like a corset in that they were designed to manipulate the torso of the female body into an ideal form. This article of clothing bound its wearer into a conical shape, forcing her shoulders back and her breasts up, creating an upright posture.

The change in body shape was accomplished by a feat in sewing engineering, usually at the hands of an expert called a stay-maker. These, typically urban, professionals made stays from an assortment of outer or “fashion” fabrics, canvas, buckram, whalebone and linen. The most important part of the stays, however, were the “stays” themselves: the whalebone strips.

“Whalebone” is a misnomer; in reality it is a horny material found inside the roof of whale’s mouth, called “baleen.” Baleen was the most commonly used stiffening material and was prized for its lightness, malleability and plasticity. However baleen was relatively expensive when compared to boning alternatives such as straw, packthread, caning and split wood (Fig. 2 and 3).

(Figures 2 and 3) Likely handmade stays boned with wood splints, 1780s-1790s. Daughters of American Revolution. Photo by author.

The three-dimensionality of stays was achieved from an average of eight diagonally-joined, two-dimensional panels (Fig. 4). All of the constituent pieces of stays had to fit together smoothly to be worn properly. Furthermore, they had to be measured and adjusted to fit the wearer as closely as possible for sake of comfort and dress. The first step was one of the most important; the stay-maker had to stitch the rows for boning straight and even, to hold the baleen pieces without causing strain on the seams. The skillful, regular stitching was part of stays’ aesthetic “composition.” The diagonal casings caught the viewer’s eye and visually elongated the waist.

Figure 4. Likely made by a professional, this pair of stays still retains the three dimensional shape imparted to it during the 1750s. Chester County Historical Society. Photo by Author.

Well fitting stays were essential for a proper silhouette. In advertisements of the period many stay-makers promised to help older women regain their “youthful figures,” while at the same time possessing the means to mold young women as they grew by fitting them with proper stays. Not every woman could afford to go into the city to be measured. In lieu of visiting the stay-maker, many were instructed to send the lining of their old stays and an assortment of measurements to aid the craftsman in constructing their new “pair of body’s,” as stays were often called.

Furthermore it is important to point out that not all women had their stays made professionally. As accomplished needlewomen, who often made and mended their families’ clothes, they were equipped with the skills to copy professionally-made stays. Some extant examples illustrate adaptive substitutions for boning, less expensive fabrics, and a relative lack of sophistication in cut. (Fig. 2)

Figure 5. These mid-eighteenth century stays were adapted for use later in the century with the addition of two horizontal pieces of wood boning across the chest. Colonial Williamsburg. Photo by author.

Regardless of their maker, most of the stays I was able to examine showed substantial signs of adaptive reuse. The most common alteration I found was the addition of a horizontal piece of boning across the front of the chest. (Fig. 5) This piece of metal, baleen or wood promoted a rounded bosom rather than a flattened one. This style gained popularity around the mid 1770s and continued well into the 1790s. This alteration likely pertains to the issue of object survival rather than an example of “typical” American practice, and suggests vigilant women eager to follow new fashions while using the resources available to them.

Stays are a fascinating source of information on craftsmanship and culture. While there have been some studies on stay making and stay use in England, there are few studies of stays that were manufactured and worn in America. I hope to remedy this oversight in my thesis. In it I explore the three essential aspects of stays and their use. The first is the “making of the stay-maker,” an exploration of the craft tradition. The second is the “making of the stays,” a guide to the process of manufacture and materials of the undergarment. The third, “making of the lady,” is an inquiry into how stays shaped an imperfect female body into an artificial ideal. The rigidity and control that their construction afforded the human body was not just physical, it was a mental feat to make such constriction look “easy” and “elegant.”

Figure 6. Samantha poses with a pair of late-eighteenth-century stays during her research at the DAR.

This past summer I visited three major collections of American stays (Fig. 6). Through the curators’ generous gift of time and attention I was able to visit, handle and document stays at the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, the Chester County Historical Society and Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Costume Collection. They have added a significant amount of perspective to the impressions I had formed by examining stays at the Winterthur Museum and the Rhode Island School of Design. As a result I have begun to build a research catalog of surviving American stays to use as my main “body” of evidence.

Samantha would like to thank the members of the Trust for their support and continued encouragement. Her research is ongoing, as such she welcomes any ideas and inquiries on the subject and can be reached at Dorseysh@gmail.com.