Ann asked me a while back to guest blog and I jumped at the chance. My specialty, as some of you many know, is historical clothing and underwear. It’s my hobby and my passion. So today we’re going to explore myths about historic undergarments.

Myth 1: Independent, forward thinking women of “insert your time period here” wouldn’t have worn a corset!

Let me simply state up front that corsets were NORMAL and COMMON for Europeans (and European expats) from the 16th century until the 1920s (and even then, they just became girdles!). It’s hard to think of an historic person who was more independent or forward thinking than Queen Elizabeth. She had numerous corps de baline (aka corsets) in her wardrobe. Same goes for Marie Antoinette and Queen Victoria, yet they wore stays and corsets too.

Myth 2: Corsets are uncomfortable

A corset that is made for you, and you alone (as they were up until the late Victorian age, when “mail order” corsets first became available), is very comfortable. They don’t pinch (it’s impossible), they don’t poke (unless the boning is working its way out), and they don’t make it impossible to breathe (unless for some unknown reason, you’re trying to lace it up tighter than you normally wear it). With the exception of the mid to late 1800’s, corsets were not even designed to give you a small waist, but to lift the breasts, and to give you a smooth base for your clothes to sit on top of. In fact, until the introduction of the metal grommet (1828) and the 2 part metal busk (1829) tightening a corset enough to dramatically change one’s figure was nearly impossible (the fabric would have given out first). The corset merely provided the right silhouette.

Myth 3: The rebel without underwear myth

Ladies (the class about which most authors choose to write) would NOT have gone about without their corsets, anymore than women today would go around without their bras (barring when one is a college students and still possesses gravity defying breasts). Those of us who don’t wear bras simply because social standards tell us we’re supposed to, wear them because the “bounce” of an unrestrained breast can be downright painful if we don’t (when you’re over a B-cup, anyway). Breasts did not bounce any less three hundred years ago. Your heroines are not going to feel constrained or put upon by their stays. Quite the contrary, they’d feel naked without them! And for you Regency authors, remember: the scandalous ladies are not the ones who are going commando, but the ones who are wearing drawers! Underpants of any kind are not common until the LATE Georgian period (c.1815). There is pretty much zero documentation for them before this (or when there is it's specifically pointed out as an aberration, like Pepey’s wife, or it’s in a context that is outside the norm, like women racing for a petticoat after a mill, wearing drawers to preserve their modesty).

Myth 4: Men not being able to tell

There is simply no way that a sighted man would not be able to tell that a woman had left off her stays. You can tell if a modern woman has chosen to go bra-less, and believe me, you can tell if a woman in period clothing has left off her stays. The entire line of the dress would be off (even if she had had them made for her un-corseted figure, they wouldn’t look like what everyone else was wearing). As I said earlier: breasts still bounced, and the position of the breast (and the shape of the rib cage) are simply different when corseted. So the sometimes employed ruse of the hero only noticing that his lady has chosen to go corset-less when he touches her, is farcical at best.

Myth 5: Getting a corset off and on again is quick and easy

How many of you have read or written a scene in which your heroine disrobes at a ball or other function, gets it on with the hero, and then gets dressed again? The odds of this happening (and the characters getting away with it) are slim and next to none. It takes a good 10-15 minutes just to get the corset on (and that’s with experienced help, with a guy fumbling with the laces, you’d be lucky to be back in inside half-an-hour). Then there’s the rest of the clothes, which mostly also require assistance to put on and are time consuming to get on correctly. For most of history the most common way to shut a women’s garments was with pins (yes pins!). Getting all the pieces of the gown laced, adjusted, and then pinned is almost an art, and it takes forever.

Myth 6: You can’t breathe in a corset

Not true, but you do breathe differently. The lungs expand upwards,pushing the breasts up (hence the noticeable palpation of the heroine’s breasts when she’s excited) and they push downwards into the belly (like deep breathing for singing). It is true however that drawing a deep breath is pretty much impossible. You’re not going to run a marathon (or even a mile) in a corset, but hiking briskly isn’t a problem (even jogging would be no problem).

Myth 7: Corsets were only for ladies

Nope. The poor wore them too. In fact, they were considered so indispensable by the 18th century that parish records show that they were provided for women in the workhouse. Frequently the poor wore simple stays made of thick leather, and the style they wore was often outdated (Walker’s The Costume of Yorkshire, c. 1814, shows working women still in 18th century-style stays).

So, do any of you have questions about other corset/underwear myths you've been harboring? Do you have any questions about wearing corsets or how the clothing of past eras worked? If so, now’s your chance. Ask…

BIO

Kalen Hughes’ debut romance novel, LORD SIN, will be published by Kensington in April 2007. She spent her childhood attending various living history events with her parents (everything from the Medieval Society for Creative Anachronism to the Regency Heyer Con), from which she learned a deep and abiding love for history and for the clothing of past eras.

Please visit her at http://www.KalenHughes.com