1780s stays

Historical costuming

My favorite surviving 18th century stays can be found in the Victoria & Albert museums collections. As my previous stays were starting to s...

I know, I know. Showing a pair of stays on a mannequin isn't as ideal as showing them on a body but I thought these photos would be better ...

In last week’s (well, almost week before lasts at this point!) Five for Friday post, when I discussed transitional stays, and succumbing to the temptation to make ‘reenactor style’ Regency stays (whic

I made another pair of stays! This pair is a reaction to many of the things that went wrong or that I didn’t like about The Stays of Fail (which I’ve posted a whole series about: the ba…

My friend Pia ( @stepsbackintothepast on Instagram) was in need of a well fitting pair of 18th century stays so I started making her one in...

In Part 2 of this tutorial we got to a point where your stay pieces were joined together. Now it's time to whip stitch the seam allowances down after the fitting session (and doing possible alterations, as in my case replacing the front panels with wider panels). Shortly after finishing this part of the construction, I learned from 18thcenturystays that you could also double the thread as it's stronger than single thread (so you can do that). After that, it's time to mark the places for the…

As promised, here is the blog post on the making of my new 1780s linen stays. I began draping the pattern on April 3, and finished building ...

This project was started on a total whim, back in March (ahem), I got through about three-quarters of the way through, lost interest, and ju...