Yet another dry, dusty pile of academic writing… This time, the topic is the corsetry/torso support of the 16th century. I find the full history of the artificial silhouette totally fascinating, and I’m geeked beyond belief on the actual genesis of the corset. In the 16th century alone, a bunch of different devices are in play. Corsets, obviously – who doesn’t know about the Pfaltzgrafin and Effigy corsets by now? Wardrobe warrants also list stomachers (for Tudor gowns) made of pasteboard covered with tapheta – that’s certainly stiff enough to smooth the front of the torso into the signature tudor inverted, featureless cone. By the end of the period, warrants talk about busks made of whalebone and wire, quilted with sarconet. (How does that fit into a channel in a corset?!? Or does the end of the era, with it’s open-fronted gowns, turn back to the same infrastructure used by the earlier tudor gowns with stiffened stomachers? I have my theories, obviously….)
So here is…. Everything I know About 16th Century Corsetry,
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