What was fashionable for women in Jane Austen’s times? Mourning, riding, daytime, evening clothing, plus underclothing, corsets and accessories. Wars were being fought so women adopted military looks in support of soldiers. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashion1810-1814 History Notes Book 27 Women’s Fashions 1810-1814.
Reader or writer of the Regency Era? Love Jane Austen and Bridgerton fashions? This book covers corsets from late 1700s to early 1800s. #JaneAusten #Georgian #Regency #Corsets Corsets 1790-1810 History Notes Book 16
Corsets or stays transitioning from 1700s into 1800s and worn during Jane Austen’s lifetime. This book shows how supporting underclothing moved away from stomachers and tightly laced stays worn during the 1700s and transitioned into corsets that were less formed and far more comfortable. Wearing the correct underclothing was essential for keeping garments in place and giving the best fashion display. Corsets worn during Jane Austen’s lifetime.
What did Jane Austen and friends wear? Early 1800s fashions were elegant and pretty with high waists and fabrics that were almost transparent. These Empire style gowns, named after Napoleon’s first Empress, became popular throughout Europe, and were then copied around the world. Colorful outwear was added to make an ensemble more attractive and warmer. History Notes Book 26 Fashion Women 1805-1809.
https://books2read.com/SuziLoveFashionWomen1805-1809
The Empire waist gown defined women’s fashion during the Regency Era. ‘Empire’ is the name given in France to the period when Napoleon built his French Empire. High-waisted, loose gowns were adopted by the aristocracy as a symbol of turning away from the fussy, elaborate and expensive clothing worn in the 1700s. Jean-Jaques Rousseau advocated copying peasants and returning to a simpler life and more natural fashions. Unrestricting clothing was part of the new Democracy in France and these simpler and flowing fashions were adopted all over Europe, including Britain and despite the continual wars being fought against France during the early 1800s. Not even war stopped fashions from being copied everywhere.
1825-1835 ca. Cotton Corset, Possibly American. Waist shaping at the almost natural waistline, flared hips, cording, widely spaced shoulder straps with front ties. Via Winterthur Museum Collection museumcollection.winterthur.org. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveCorsetBook17
1780-1789 Pale Pink Linen Stays Or Corset, Great Britain. Stays, 1780-1789 (made). Pale pink linen, lined with linen and reinforced with whalebone, trimmed with pale blue silk ribbon. Hand sewn with linen thread, applied ribbon, chamois and whalebone. Stays were an essential item of underwear for women during the 18th century. By the 1780s, the fashionable torso consisted of an inverted cone shape. Achieving smoothness of profile and firmness of contour were the primary function of 18th-century stays, rather than emphasising the bust or constricting the waist. Although custom-made and very intricately designed, stays were usually very plain. In this example a narrow blue ribbon covering the seams is the only decoration.
The narrow rows of very fine, even hand-stitching form the compartments into which thin strips of whalebone were inserted. Although the stays appear very rigid, whalebone was quite flexible. It had the added advantage of softening with the heat of the wearer’s body, allowing the stays to mould to her shape. When worn, the shaped and boned tabs at the lower edge would splay over the wearer’s hips, giving further fullness to the petticoat tied at the waist over the stays. Given by Mrs Strachan. Museum Number T.172-1914. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K.
1770 ca. Corset, Europe. Back lacing, blue and cream silk with cream silk bows.
Corsets 1700-1790 History Notes Book 15 This book shows how body wraps, stomachers and stays were worn during the 1700s. They created a variety of fashionable silhouettes to suit the elaborate fashions worn for court and daily life during the 18th Century. Wearing the correct underclothing was essential for keeping garments in place and giving the best fashion display. Corsets, stays, body wraps, and stomachers worn during the 1700s, or the Georgian Era. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveCorsetBook15
19th Century Early Chemise or Shift, American. White linen and embroidery. via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. metmuseum.org
Chemise Or Shift: Sleeveless, mid-calf length garment of white cotton or muslin was worn next to the skin under stays or corset. Called ‘Shift’ from early Georgian (1700-1750) until Late Georgian (1750-1790) to replace ‘Smock’. By 1800, name replaced by ‘Chemise’. The sort of undergarment that Jane Austen would have worn next to her skin and under her stays, or corset.
When Corsets Saved Lives.
During the Victorian Era, the tight lacing of corsets became known for damaging women’s bodies. However, the whalebone used to stiffen corsets was also a protector of the chest and rib area.
1833 Morning Post: HATTON-GARDEN. ATTEMPTED MURDER. George Bailey, a youth about seventeen, was charged with having attempted to murder Mary Prendergast, a young woman, by stabbing her with a large knife. It appeared in evidence that on Thursday morning, last, about five o’clock, the Prisoner, who sells fish in a basket near Portpool-lane, Leather-lane, Holborn, was standing before his basket when the Prosecutrix asked him the price of his fish. He told her, and she refused to purchase, but laughed at him and jeered him.. . . . In the course of the evening the Prosecutrix was passing by, when the Prisoner rushed upon her with a knife which he uses to cut up the fish and, while in a great passion, he pluinged the knife several times at her heart, and the last thrust the point of the knife dug into her clothes, and would have entered her body had it not been that the bone of her stays prevented it …
1837 The Standard: MARLBOROUGH-STREET. – AN UNNATURAL SON – Alfred Grant, a lad about nineteen years of age, of sullen aspect, was brought before Mr. Dyer, charged with having attempted to stab his own mother . . . James Grant, the brother of the prisoner, about sixteen years of age, said the prisoner came home to Grafton-street, Soho, on Monday afternoon, and some words having ensued between him and his mother, he seized a knife and made a stab at her. Fortunately the bone of his mother’s stays turned the point of the knife …
1841 The Morning Post: Catherine Connor, the person alluded to by the last witness, and who is in a state of pregnancy, deposed that she kept a fruit stall opposite to the Phoenix public-house and that on seeing the young man so savagely treated, she made use of the expersions just named, when Hill called her a ——–, and kicked at her violently. Fortunately for her, she received two of the worse kicks aimed at her on the bone of her stays, otherwise they would, she had no doubt, have proved most serious to her from the situation she was then in.
1820-1835 ca. Woman’s Underwear Combination, English. Petticoat: 1820-1829 ca. Cotton with double row of piping round hem. Frontless with looped shoulder pieces. Corset: 1835: Cotton reinforced with whalebone and cording, hand-sewn. Shift Or Chemise:1830s Worn under corset. Drawers: Sheer clinging fabrics needed drawers underneath for modesty. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
collections.vam.ac.uk.
1810 ca. Muslin, or Cotton, Bodiced Petticoat With Sleeves, British.The sort of petticoat Jane Austen wore beneath her dresses, for both modesty and warmth. via Killerton House. National Trust, U.K. nationaltrustcollections.org.uk
In Jane Austen’s years of the early nineteenth century, women often wore light-weight dresses under which was worn a range of underclothing to stop gowns appearing transparent and sticking to a lady’s body. To preserve modesty, underclothing included a chemise next to the skin, then a corset, and then petticoats to give shape to a dress and to keep it away from her body.
