Skip to content

Sarah A. Bendall

A blog about early modern fashions from a Historian

  • Blog
  • Homepage
  • Shaping Femininity
  • Research
  • Publications
  • Podcasts & Videos
  • In the Media
  • Contact
  • Reconstruction Portfolio
  • Read

cropped-rp-p-ob-11.546-1.jpg

Published by Sarah Bendall

View all posts by Sarah Bendall

Post navigation

Previous postcropped-rp-p-ob-11.546-1.jpg

Recent Posts

  • Quilted Petticoats in the Seventeenth Century
  • Hats, Headwear and Masculinity in Sixteenth-Century Europe
  • Fortuna and virtù: Embodying Classical Concepts in Renaissance Armour
  • Shaping Femininity Book Launch Recording

Categories

Tutorials

  • Elizabeth I Effigy Bodies Reconstruction | Part One: The Pattern & Materials
  • Dame Filmer Bodies, c. 1630-1650 Reconstruction | Part One: The Pattern & Materials
  • Rebato Collar, c. 1600-1625 | Part One: Brief History and Materials

Instagram

Details from a hand-painted 18th century gauze fan at @centreforfashion
Thrilled that Shaping Femininity came highly commended in the Society for Renaissance Studies U.K. Biannual book prize!!
Quilted petticoats. Were they a thing in the 17th century? Yes!
This bust line!! The feeling of wearing these was so different to my usual 17th century bodies/stays. The wide curved bust line really scooped up the chest as I was laced in.
Getting there. It’s interesting making 18th century stays when most of your experience is in 17th century bodies/stays. 18th century is definitely more complex in terms of boning and layers, but thankfully uses most of the same sewing techniques.
Finally finished hand sewing the boning channels on an 18th-century stay reconstruction I’m working on with @dressesbodieshistories !!

Archives

Highlights

  • Bodies or Stays? Underwear or Outerwear? Seventeenth-century Foundation Garments explained.
  • Randle Holme’s The Academy of Armory (1688) and late Seventeenth-century Women’s Dress Terminology
  • Back to Basics: The Smock in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
  • Looking at 1630s English Fashions through Wenceslaus Hollar’s Ornatvs Mvluebris Anglicanus
  • The tailoring Trade in Seventeenth-Century Oxford – Tales from the Bodleian Archive.
  • The sixteenth-century Vasquine / Basquine: A corset, farthingale or Kirtle?

Twitter

My Tweets

Subscribe to Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 118 other subscribers

Search Blog

All content © copyright of Sarah A Bendall, unless otherwise linked or stated. --- All views presented are my own.

- Follow me on Instagram -

Details from a hand-painted 18th century gauze fan at @centreforfashion Thrilled that Shaping Femininity came highly commended in the Society for Renaissance Studies U.K. Biannual book prize!! Quilted petticoats. Were they a thing in the 17th century? Yes! This bust line!! The feeling of wearing these was so different to my usual 17th century bodies/stays. The wide curved bust line really scooped up the chest as I was laced in. Getting there. It’s interesting making 18th century stays when most of your experience is in 17th century bodies/stays. 18th century is definitely more complex in terms of boning and layers, but thankfully uses most of the same sewing techniques. Finally finished hand sewing the boning channels on an 18th-century stay reconstruction I’m working on with @dressesbodieshistories !! A couple of months ago I caught up with the guys at History Rage podcast. They let me vent, on behalf of the dress history and costuming community, about all the things we get wrong about corsets! Day dress, hand sewn, empire line, muslin, maker unknown, England, c. 1810. Two dresses worn by Ann Marsden (1794 - 1885) in Sydney Australia during the 1820s at @centreforfashion @powerhousemuseum .