Drum Roll Please: Here is Exhibit A for what happens when one makes a new pair of regency short stays right when one is coming down with a flu and is taking lots of cold-and-flu medication. You might get what I got: a pair of regency ribbon stays.
The Plan: A new pair of Redthreaded regency short stays made of nice stiff cotton coutil.
The Reality: Confusion in the fabric stash and a pair of lightweight regency stays sewn of a single layer of very bias-stretch-y cotton canvas. Also, I used 3/4 inch tape for my 1/4 inch boning channels. Also, I mucked up the spacing of the grommets and put them on back to front. Also, I cut the wrong size of bust cups, and had to to pinch them in by almost fifty percent. But mostly it was the way that stretchy cotton sagged and twisted like a ancient swimsuit coming out of a chlorinated swimming pool. These stays weren’t a support garment. They were heading south for the winter and draping around me like a sarong.
My husband suggested I re-cut the stays in cotton coutil, properly, and start over.
Medicated Me said “Loose a whole day and all this work?! I will never!”
“It will take you a day,” he said. “Tops. Just move on. Please?”
But why would I? I was already thinking about was a solution to my little structural problem. If the Edwardians could make whole corsets out of ribbons, I should be able to stabilize a pair of stays in Exactly the Same Way.
Ribbons.
Ribbon corsets do exist – there are quite a few pairs of Edwardian ribbon corsets floating around museum collections. Granted, these Edwardian treats appear to be more delicate fashion items than hard wearing structural underpinnings, but the theory is sound. Right?
Of course, for one’s reinforcing tape, one probably should use something solid and non-stretchy, instead of the roll of very stretchy cotton something-or-other I didn’t even know that I owned. It was even worse than the fabric I’d made the stays from in the first place! (Why would I own something this pointless? Why?!)
I unpicked it all and started again.
Machine stitching multiple rows of tight stitches straight across all of my boning channels was another detour. I unpicked those as well and started one more time. Fourth time lucky, right?
After some subjective infinity of sewing and reinforcing I had a pair of stays that was structurally stable and certified 100% non-stretchy! And it only took three times longer than starting from scratch would have done in the first place!
I’ve worn these regency “ribbon stays” comfortably to at least three events. They give me a nice shoulders-back period posture. They give me the appropriate period uplift. And they’re so structurally solid you could probably use them to anchor a midtown skyscraper.
But the Moral of the Story?
Got flu? The TV is right there. Go sit. For the love of all that’s non-stretchy, whatever you do, don’t sew.
I cannot find any information on strip-reinforced regency stays, but I did go down an absolutely gorgeous rabbit hole of costumers making Edwardian ribbon corsets. Here are a few!
A yellow ribbon corset and a ribbon corset tutorial, both by Sidney Eileen
Several beautiful ribbon corsets by Lady Wilhelmine’s Boudoir
A zip-front ribbon corset by Skeletons in the Closet
A floral ribbon corset by The Dreamstress
A blue ribbon corset by Lucy’s Corsetry
It’s almost enough to make a person want to start sewing a whole new era.