Stays and Corsets

Left to right:
Child's corset / Linen / 18th century / Lent by The Museum of the City of New York

Stay / Multicolor silk brocade / France, c.1750 / Museum Purchase, 99.79
Corsets originated in the beginning of the 16th century, when aristocratic Spanish women first adopted "whalebone bodies." Stays (later known as corsets) rapidly became fashionable throughout Europe. In 1588, the French essayist Michel de Montaigne wrote, "To get a slim body, Spanish style, what torture do women not endure, so tightly tied and bound . . . " Although doctors and moralists remonstrated, women continued to wear some form of corset until the middle of the 20th century, because corsetry was associated with feminine beauty, aristocratic display, and self-discipline.

Corset (stay) / Light blue silk, silk ribbon, whalebone / Possibly Europe, c. 1770 / Museum purchase, P82.1.16
Decorative 18th-century stays could function both as outerwear and underwear. As outerwear, they sometimes had attached sleeves.

Corset / Iron / Europe, supposedly c. 1580-1600 (but probably late 19th or early 20th century forgery) / Gift of Janet & David Desmon / 87.94.3 A-B
The earliest corsets date from the 16th century, when aristocratic women in Spain and Italy began wearing “whalebone bodies.” These undergarments were made of cloth with whalebone or metal inserts to provide shaping. They derive from medieval garments, which were stiffened with layers of fabric and laced closed.

At first glance, metal corsets, like this one, which measures less than 14 inches around the waist, seem like instruments of torture. This corset, however, is almost certainly a modern forgery, based on rare Renaissance metal corsets, which were actually orthopedic devices designed to correct spinal deformities. Even ordinary corsets horrified the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne, who wrote: “What hell our women have to go through, so tightly tied and bound...”