#staymaking

[artschoolglasses]

Patterns of Fashion 5: The Content, Cut, Construction, and Context of Bodies, Stays, Hoops, and Rumps c. 1595-1795

All the detail shots in this book are fantastic. And some of the garments included? The silver tissue gown? The pair of bodies from the Elizabeth I effigy? Ugh, my fashion history nerd heart... 🖤

[fancyratlady]

How cool! What decade are you going for?

Okay, I remeasured myself and with a larger magical number I now have a pair of stays that actually closes. With the hip gussets cut to my size it actually looks like something that might shape up to be a functioning pair of stays. I'll report back when it's all sewn up!

[darkandstormydolls]

PSA to all historical fiction/fantasy writers:

A SEAMSTRESS, in a historical sense, is someone whose job is sewing. Just sewing. The main skill involved here is going to be putting the needle into an out of the fabric. They’re usually considered unskilled workers, because everyone can sew, right? (Note: yes, just about everyone could sew historically. And I mean everyone.) They’re usually going to be making either clothes that aren’t fitted (like shirts or shifts or petticoats) or things more along the lines of linens (bedsheets, handkerchiefs, napkins, ect.). Now, a decent number of people would make these things at home, especially in more rural areas, since they don’t take a ton of practice, but they’re also often available ready-made so it’s not an uncommon job. Nowadays it just means someone whose job is to sew things in general, but this was not the case historically. Calling a dressmaker a seamstress would be like asking a portrait painter to paint your house

A DRESSMAKER (or mantua maker before the early 1800s) makes clothing though the skill of draping (which is when you don’t use as many patterns and more drape the fabric over the person’s body to fit it and pin from there (although they did start using more patterns in the early 19th century). They’re usually going to work exclusively for women, since menswear is rarely made through this method (could be different in a fantasy world though). Sometimes you also see them called “gown makers”, especially if they were men (like tailors advertising that that could do both. Mantua-maker was a very feminized term, like seamstress. You wouldn’t really call a man that historically). This is a pretty new trade; it only really sprung up in the later 1600s, when the mantua dress came into fashion (hence the name).

TAILORS make clothing by using the method of patterning: they take measurements and use those measurements to draw out a 2D pattern that is then sewed up into the 3D item of clothing (unlike the dressmakers, who drape the item as a 3D piece of clothing originally). They usually did menswear, but also plenty of pieces of womenswear, especially things made similarly to menswear: riding habits, overcoats, the like. Before the dressmaking trade split off (for very interesting reason I suggest looking into. Basically new fashion required new methods that tailors thought were beneath them), tailors made everyone’s clothes. And also it was not uncommon for them to alter clothes (dressmakers did this too). Staymakers are a sort of subsect of tailors that made corsets or stays (which are made with tailoring methods but most of the time in urban areas a staymaker could find enough work so just do stays, although most tailors could and would make them).

Tailors and dressmakers are both skilled workers. Those aren’t skills that most people could do at home. Fitted things like dresses and jackets and things would probably be made professionally and for the wearer even by the working class (with some exceptions of course). Making all clothes at home didn’t really become a thing until the mid Victorian era.

And then of course there are other trades that involve the skill of sewing, such as millinery (not just hats, historically they did all kinds of women’s accessories), trimming for hatmaking (putting on the hat and and binding and things), glovemaking (self explanatory) and such.

TLDR: seamstress, dressmaker, and tailor are three very different jobs with different skills and levels of prestige. Don’t use them interchangeably and for the love of all that is holy please don’t call someone a seamstress when they’re a dressmaker

[marzipanandminutiae]

I was about to be irritated at a shitty "kids' education" website on 1770s clothing but then I learned that there's a staymaker buried at King's Chapel and now I'm just delighted to know the gravesite of a clothing worker from that era and I want to take him flowers

[tricornonthecob]

sometimes I feel bad about having multiple primary skillsets and ping-ponging between them, but then I think about best-selling author, humanist gremlin, and unhinged ginger Thomas Paine.

More under the cut

His occupations, according to Bastion Of All Knowledge Ever, Wikipedia, included (but were not limited to:)

taxpayer-funded pirate (privateer)

bra artificer (staymaker)

office intern (supernumerary officer)

Suspiciously Disorganized Gimme-Your-Money officer (excise tax officer who was dismissed for "claiming to have inspected goods he did not inspect")

Schoolteacher

Walgreens manager (tobacconist-grocer)

Magazine editor as an excuse to write about shifting the means of production (editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine)

Best-selling Pamphlet author (Common Sense)

Number Muncher for The Office Of Wooing The French And Begging The Dutch For Money (secretary for the Congressional Committee of Foreign Affairs)

Possible Wikileaks While Being A Number Muncher

Ex-Number Muncher for The Office Of Wooing The French And Begging The Dutch For Money (dismissed for exposing corruption and being particularly rude about the whole thing.)

Not-As-Best-Selling Pamphlet That Criticized Old Rich White Guys author (Public Good)

Seriously, Fuck Off Monarchy author (Rights of Man 1 and 2)

Fuck Off, Capitalism, Lets Have UBI Pamphlet author (Agrarian Justice)

Representative of the French National Convention for Pas-de-Calais

Bridge Engineer (????? I have no words)

Smokeless Candle Engineer

Tinkerer (worked with John Fitch in developing steam engines)

12-Step Guide To Invading Great Britain (Observations on the Construction and Operation of Navies with a Plan for an Invasion of England and the Final Overthrow of the English Government and To the People of England on the Invasion of England)

Reformed Napoleon Stan

George Washington Denouncer

Look if that ginger can be a pirate, make stays, run a walgreens, not collect taxes, be a best-selling author, simultaneously court and piss off America, simultaneously court and piss off France, make plans to invade the ENTIRETY of Great Britain, be the representative of a province he doesn't speak the language of, narrowly avoid getting beheaded in the French Revolution, invent a new type of bridge, make a fancy candle, etc, then maybe my brunette ass can do anything I want, too.

[costumersupportdept]

oh come on, Shondaland. Did we have to start off the Queen Charlotte Bridgerton with a literal three minute monologue about how awful corsets are (only if they're not fitted correctly/you're not used to them, also in this period they were 100% referred to as stays.) and how the whalebone in them will stab you to death and is EXCEEDINGLY SHARP? (uh, what? whalebone is keratin and 100% softens up when held in contact with a warm body for any length of time?)

Charlotte would have been so used to wearing stays as a woman of that social class in that period that she would have been entirely unphased by that.

(And please don't start me on how she replies to her brother with "yes, the BONES of WHALES" because you and I both know that's also a load of horseshit and the stuff used to stiffen stays was actually the baleen from the roofs of their mouths, not the ACTUAL BONES of WHALES.)

If you need more:

[prudencepaccard]

take a drink every time she says something that's the literal opposite of this information from the Met: "The stays worn in the eighteenth century were a product of heavy labor. A male industry, staymaking was at a very high standard by the middle of the eighteenth century. Stays were made from baleen, which was harvested from the mouth of the Right Atlantic Whale and commonly referred to as whalebone. This material was firm but flexible and could be cut into very thin pieces without any loss of strength. Carefully measured strips of whalebone stitched between a lining and facing fabric created the stays of the eighteenth century. The rounded opening at the top of the stays was made through the innovation of inserting whalebone strips across the bustline as well as vertically. Stays could be fully boned or half-boned, but the latter was more common in the second half of the eighteenth century."

[eruditetyro]

i HAVE been making a doily. this weekend. in case anyone was wondering. yeah tatting. yeah i am surprised also as the things i have most recently talked to people about are staymaking and bobbin lace. but tatting beckoned me and so i went.

[vinceaddams]

Yep, they even had tools to help stretch the gloves if necessary. Here's an ivory glove stretcher from c. 1870-1900.

Speaking from experience after having sewn a number of leather gloves, they really do stretch a LOT. I've had a couple of pairs that started off uncomfortably tight in places and stretched out to be just a bit too big after I wore them enough times.

As far as I'm aware, gloves were usually not custom made, and they were something people often bought a lot of and went through fairly quickly. In the Old Bailey records you see accounts of people stealing 16 pairs of gloves, 50 pairs of gloves, three dozen pairs of gloves, etc. Those were stolen from houses, not stores!

Here is a book about manufacturing from 1845 which goes on for quite a few pages about gloves, and it's clear from the description of the process that they're made in large amounts and sold to stores with no possibility of custom measuring.

By the end of the 19th century the supply chain would have been different and you could order them from catalogues, but they were still just as stretchy as before.

Edit: They did still have numbered sizes, of course.

Also, this is kind of nitpicking, but tailors and glovemakers are different jobs. Tailors made suits and coats and tailored things like that, and glovemakers made gloves. Dressmakers/mantua makers, staymakers, shirtmakers, milliners, shoemakers, embroiderers, button makers- all these are distinctly different jobs. (And while I'm on the subject, cobblers do not make shoes. Cobblers repair shoes, and shoemakers/cordwainers make shoes.)

where the fuck did the phrase ‘fits like a glove’ come from. ive never worn a glove that fit perfectly in my entire life.

[becoming-not-became]

Seasons

Most people don’t a few dobut not many most go about many never staymaking this seem like the weather all too predictable such are seasons

[bandnameserver]

Staymakers

[marzipanandminutiae]

There are some people talking about Thomas Paine’s time in France during the revolution over there, in the comments on the post I made about him

And while that’s very nice and all, I’m sure,

We are not talking about his politics right now. We are talking about his cringefail staymaking career

[chocolatepot]

Stealing @areax's tags: #people get this way about weeded books at the library as well#they just do not understand the concept of collection management

Yep! This is not a "the zoomers are brainrotted" issue, this is something that you can find pretty much anywhere. I used to volunteer with a library book sale and the idea that we would recycle terminally unsold books was unthinkable to a lot of people.

I think what it comes down to is the fact that our own books are important to us. We curate collections reflecting our interests and personalities, and the thought of them being dismantled is generally unwelcome. I ordered that book on the staymaking industry as soon as it was published. I found that fantasy novel in a garage sale and it blew my mind. I have a full shelf of books on queenship for research purposes and I know them all well. So, many people automatically imagine their own books being folded and cut into sculptures, or dropped into a dumpster for recycling.

In my experience, making it clear how valueless a particular book being destroyed is can make a huge difference. Now instead of going "but that's a BOOK! someone might love it!!" they go, "oh, another copy of Da Vinci Code ... yeah, that can go in the bin, there's a lot of those," "yeah, that book on stick insects from 1972 is pretty useless," "a diet manual from the 80s? toss it!"

Not expalining WHY bookburning is bad and WHAT books were targeted has left us with Bookworm uwu girlies treating any art project or act involving destorying/modifying any random ass mass printed novel as if it was a crime against humanity

[tricornonthecob]

do you think as a former staymaker, Thomas Paine would have aggressively gotten into historical costube. I feel like he would at least be in the comments, making noise.

[taniyaroy]

Find out where to stay in Chikmagalur

Beautiful Karnataka hill town Chikmagalur is well-known for its coffee, serene atmosphere, and a profusion of greenery. Kadur was the name used up to 1947. Chikmagalur name translates to “town of the younger little girl.” It was presented as dowry to Rukmangada, the younger daughter of Sakrepatna’s fabled chief.

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3. Greenwood Resort

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6. Gavikal Club & Resort

7. The Serai Chikmagalur

8. Jhari Eco Stay

9. Trivik Hotels & Resorts Chikmagalur

10. Gateway Resorts Chikmagalur

[verdraaidzaamheid]

I think I want to post more of my (historical) costuming on this platform, to have a bit more original content of my own and keep track of my process.

So here is the next big thing I'm working on: a complete 1780's outfit to go to an 18th century soirée in October.

First step: make new stays (I only have one pair and it's not up to my standards anymore, so I need to make a new pair). This is the first mock up I made from a pattern drafted according tot Patterns of Fashion 5 and a tremendously helpful YouTube tutorial by Michelle Fitzgerald: Arc-drafted 18th century stays patterning class - YouTube (it's a very long video, but if you just follow along while drafting to your own measurements, it's great!)

It fits surprisingly well. Seriously. It only needs a couple of pretty minor adjustments. The best part: no lower back pain. This must be the first time in my stays and corsetry making journey, that I managed to omit this annoying fit issue.

So next, I'll make some adjustments, and on to mock up no. 2 (and hopefully the final mock up)