Stays were the most important article of clothing in an eighteenth-century woman's life. Worn from infancy, stays were designed to reshape the female body into an accepted aesthetic ideal. Starting with their production and trade, Sorge-English looks at the intricacies of the staymaker's craft, the role of gender in the design and manufacture of stays and the changing shape of stays over time. Over forty black and white photographs and line drawings are used to illustrate a chronology of style and form. This detailed artefactual analysis also allows for study of the effects of long-term wearing of stays on a woman's health throughout the life cycle. Such constrictive garments cannot have left their wearers unscathed, and it is unsurprising that as women became more involved in the production process the design of stays became more akin to the natural female form. This book takes a unique approach to the writing of dress, cultural and social history by combining material culture analyses with more traditional historical research findings, including Sorge-English's discovery of an eighteenth-century staymaker's diary.
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