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1-21-02 Initially, at the start of the year, it felt as though I wasn't going to have the energy to work on the entire gown, but I think it's becomming a bit more reasonable as time wears on and my schedule becomes less psychotic. One of the biggest motivators for me is the work that Jen Thompson has been doing on her Florentine gown... The stuff she's doing is too good to pass up! The most intreguing revelation she's come up with is the idea of using corded stays to achieve the proper sillohuette, rather than reed or metal boning. This idea also works well with explaning some of the earlier Tudor bodices that have a more rounded appearance in the busom rather than the straight fronted corseted view of the later half of the century. As a historical costumer, I'm not convinced that corsetry was the answer prior to 1570 and Jen's done a marvellous job in substantiating a lot of my suspicions. Since Jen has done such an excellent job in visually outlining the problems with different methods of supposed stiffening, I won't rehash it all here. If you're interested, you definately should check out her Florentine Dress Diary for more information on the topic. Method 1: Buckram Many wardrobe accounts from the last half of the 16th century mention buckram and cardboard (!) as stiffening agents in stays and overgarments. I remembered my old buckram corset and dug it out of the basement to see if it was at least workable in the real world. The biggest problem with buckram is that it buckles if it's used to fully line a support garment. By nature it's a regular fabric that has been stiffened with a glue, so it behaves as a fabric normally wants to, but rather than wrinkle at stress points, it buckles. I was aware of this when I made the corset originally, and to combat the problem, I quilted the two layers of buckram as I would have in making boning channels for a traditional corset (no boning was used in this corset, though). The quilting metod I used, which was most quilted on the diagonal along stress points, prevented the buckling from happening. Instead, it held together pretty nicely, with only a few minor wrinkles under the breasts. The photos below show the corset from the font, side and the quilting diagram. This isn't the style of corset that I will be using (pretty far from it actually), but I wanted to demonstrate how buckram works as a stiffening, since Jen didn't have access to buckram in her experiments.
Method 2: Cord There's only one thing wrong with the cording method... I can't document it prior to the 18th century. The only trouble is that it works so well to give the right appearance that it's almost criminal not to try and substantiate it's existence in the 16th century. At the moment, the best I've come up with is that we have evidence of corded farthingales, which were also stiffened by reed, metal and whalebone. Therefore, if corded farthingales were known, then it is not unreasonable to assume that the same method could be applied to stiffening stays, which were also stiffened with reed, metal or whalebone. Of course, this doesn't prove a thing, but it's not an unreasonable assumption either. So far, cording appears to be in documentable limbo as far as stays are concerned. One reason for this could be that, like reed, cording was prone to decaying and merely disentigrated over the years, leaving costume historians to assume that reed or some other organic stiffening agent was used. Reed is certainly prone to disintegration and breakage, as many of my adventerous costuming comrades have found in the past, and not only that, it was difficult to obtain if you didn't have access to a marsh or a craft supply store. With those things in mind, cording seems to be even more of a logical alternative for someone who couldn't afford more expensive methods of stiffening. Also, as far as the early 16th century is concerned, there isn't any evidence to suggest that a corset was worn, and certainly a corset would have a hell of a time achieving the softer lines that were fashionable at the time. I'm not going to spend more time arguing all the logical reasons why cording works, though... I'm just going to go with my personal hunch and leave it at that. Sometimes, a hunch is all you have... ;) 2-9-02 Read About The Big News (if you haven't heard already) I did it. I put the corded stays together and let me just say... WOW. It is terribly comfortable, extremely sturdy and yes, I can even perform a surprising amount of yoga possitions in it. If only it weren't for that annoying little historically accurite problem... Oh well. A girl has to move on. So, here are the pictures of the stays: It's made from cotton/linen jaquard (in a horribly unperiod pattern, I might add). The stiffening is 1/8" diameter hemp cord sent special from Texas courtesy of my dear, lovely friend Jen, when it became woefully apparent that no one in California carries the stuff. I've basically given up on buckram, mainly because it doesn't behave well when worn as a support garment.
I think these pictures speak pretty well for themselves. I still have to finish the edges around the armholes and neckline and sew the skirt to the waist before it is finished. That's all for now! |
