18th century Undies

Since I am making a new (and much more authentic than my last) robe a la francaise, I decided I absolutely needed 18th century undergarments.

The stays. These are actually my second pair of stays, since the first (which were a changeable blue/green silk) were too big. Even with this smaller pair, I had to size the pattern (butterick 4484) down quite a bit. These stays are made of a brown silk, and are binded with robin's egg-blue ribbon. It took me seven or eight mockups, but I'm pleased with the stays (even if they are a bit short-waisted, but not doing that again!) They are boned with plastic cableties, which work extremely well; try them!!

The back, currently laced with shoelaces. The hand-sewn eyelets are something I don't want to again any time soon! The stays were built to be spiral-laced, but they're currently shoelace-laced. The chemise is made of some polyester-type material that I got for some costume I made for a play. For it, I used Simplicity's misses 18th century undergarments pattern. The pattern runs HUGE, by the way.


Me putting on my pockethoops, which I'm not too fond of, due to the fact that they're not exactly historical (butterick 4484 again) and they flop down under any weight and drive me crazy. They're boned with some metal stuff from Lowe's.

Pockethoops from back.

The petticoat. It's made out of two types of fabric because I didn't have enough of any one type. I made the smallest size of the pattern (Butterick 4484 again), but they were still too big. You can see the petticoat falling down in the picture, showing my stays' tabs.


From the side. You can see how thin the sides of the dress will be.

From the back.







Me displaying the pocketholes that open into the huge pockethoops. You can fit so much stuff inside them! So I could have one pocket for historical stuff and one for camera, cell phone, ect. =)

Note totally non-historical plastic pink ring.