The Hamilton Project- An Update on The Stays

 Hello there, dear reader!

         So if you have read this blog post about The Hamilton Project, you will know that my friend Luiza and I are making a historical cosplay of Elizabeth and Angelica Schuyler, who are characters in the musical Hamilton. 

I have a little update on the stays, which is the first garment of this project that I am making. 

    Mid-morning of a beautiful rainy day, the mail-human brought me the great gift- of linen!

This linen, is special, being what I will use to make Luiza's and my stays.

Also, I suppose I should address what stays are, being that it isn't really common nowadays to know exactly what the structured under-garment is underneath all 18th century clothing.

Here is an example from The Metropolitan Museum of Art:

These are British stays, from the late 18th century, made of blue silk.

The shape of the stays changed a lot over time, due to needing the stays to provide the right shape for the fashion of the day. After all, you don't want a conical regency dress, or a sacque gown with short stays! (It just wouldn't look right, after all!)

These stays are quite decorative, which makes me think that they may not have been for everyday wear underneath the other clothing. Anyways, these are probably around the 1790's, and according to The Met, they are probably american. 

So, now that you (hopefully!) know the basics about what stays look like, I would like to talk about the stays that I will be making!

My pattern is the American Duchess for Simplicity 8579 18th century underpinnings sewing pattern.

I got my linen from fabric-store.com, 2 yards of white linen, 1 yard of the meadow color, and 1 yard of the froth. The interlining is duck canvas from Joann's Fabrics, and the boning is from.... somewhere. But I got 60 yards of it, which is A LOT.

So, that was my little update, thanks for reading!