Garment Cut and Its Relationship to Underwear
T he method outlined in this chapter will help you to collate information in a comprehensive and easy-to-follow way, regardless of the date of the garment. By gathering information from multiple sources and disciplines you will build the clearest possible idea of the shape of support needed to display any item of clothing. However, with so much diverse information available, it’s important to have a format to guide your research. This chapter suggests a research structure that will help important details not to be missed when analysing your garment. The information is presented following the same system for each era.
Research system
• A dated painting, engraving, fashion plate or photograph showing how the garment was worn or, in the case of a fashion plate, the fashionable aspirations of the time.
• A surviving garment on a mannequin from a reliable source, usually a reputable museum.
• An image of the type of underwear worn, corset, crinoline bustle etc.
• A generic diagram of the pattern pieces expected in garments of the proposed date.
• Relevant technical inventions and political or social events affecting how the garment would have been made and worn.
Figure 3. 1 How high can a bustle be? Very high in this example of a crinolette from 1880 in the collection of the Fashion Museum Bath. The height of a bustle is an important dating tool for garments from 1875 to 1890. Steel and cream cotton crinolette by W. S. Thompson, c. 1880. © Fashion Museum Bath.
Following the suggested method, it is possible to build a convincing idea of the fashionable silhouette, and whether the garment is from the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth or twenty-first centuries. From the twentieth century onwards developments in clothing styles became increasingly rapid and references ever more diverse. For any period, the more information collected to explain how a garment was made, how underwear created its shape, by whom it was worn and what function the garment was expected to perform for the wearer, the better the understanding of the contemporaneous ‘look’ will be and the more successful the display.
The important questions to be answered through research are:
• What was the overall silhouette of the garment when it was worn?
• Was a corset worn? If so, what shape?
• How long and wide was the skirt?
• What type of petticoats would have been worn?
• What shape were the sleeves?
Figure 3. 2 Corset and Petticoat Timeline, outlining some of the changes in shape from 1750 to 1950. (Not to scale).
Collating the answers to these questions will guide decisions about the appropriate mannequin, bust form or other custom-made torso you will need to display the garment. When designing a support for any garment having a clear vision of the silhouette created by what was worn underneath, whether corsets and petticoats or simply the natural curves of the body, is essential. Understanding the developments in undergarments gives insight into how to achieve some of the exaggerated silhouettes seen in ‘fashionable looks’ through the decades. The timeline, seen in figure 3. 2, shows some of changes in the design of corsets and petticoats that altered the silhouette of the body and consequently the style of garments worn over them. It does not cover every type of petticoat throughout the decades but shows some of the significant developments. The red line indicates the approximate position of the natural waistline.
Corset and petticoat timeline 1750–1950
Eighteenth century
During the eighteenth century, stays held the upper body in a tight, inverted cone shape, initially quite long and narrow (see figure 3. 5) giving the wearer an upright posture, but becoming shorter and wider around the bust as the century progressed (see figure 3. 13). The back of the stays was high throughout, usually with straps over the shoulders, attached at the back and tied to the top of the stays at the front. In the mid-century, stays were still quite long with the shoulders narrow at the back and the bust flattened across the front. Waists were small and tightly laced throughout the century. By the 1780s, stays had shortened to a more natural waist position. They remained high and narrow across the back of the shoulders but the top edge at the front curved outwards, giving added fullness to the bust by pushing it forward and upwards.
The shape of garment skirts was enhanced by various types of hooped petticoats, sometimes referred to as ‘pannier’, a French term (see figure 3. 9). These could be round, flattened or fan-shaped. At the beginning of the century round hoops were the fashion. These were then flattened by tying tapes inside from front to back creating a wide oval shape, becoming very exaggerated by the mid-century, particularly for court dress. Shorter wide hoops known as side hoops were also worn, giving a narrower, often more square profile to the skirts worn over them (see figure 3. 10). These narrower hoops were also split into two side pannier or pocket hoops that fitted over the hips at the sides only. As the name suggests, pocket hoops sometimes had slits in the top to access separate pockets tied around the waist and falling inside the hoops. By the 1780s, skirt profiles were less exaggerated (see figure 3. 12a and b) and padded rolls known as ‘rumps’ gradually replaced the hoop petticoats seen earlier. These consisted of a padded cushion over the back of the hips held in position with tapes tied across the front. Little evidence remains of how these garments would have looked but a surviving example of a white linen rump from Manchester City Galleries is discussed in Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion 5. 1 Examples can also be seen in engravings and contemporary cartoons.