…it was discovered the body was in proportion to head measurements.  W.H. Wampum, a German tailor was fascinated with this law of Anthropometrics, and began to work with the idea of drafting patterns to size rather than draping on the body. (The study of anthropometrics yields body proportion.  Below: Today, …

France, the fashion leader at the time, was at war, and an abrupt change came to all structured and elaborate garments.  It was at this time the scientific study of the human body had come to the garment making industry. (Portrait:  Women of the French Revolution in 1790’s are idealized …

…there were traveling weavers who introduced lovely striped fabrics that were actually an innovative way to use up leftover yarns from other weaves.  The French peasantry, wearing these, so charmed Queen Marie Antoinette that she introduced new fashions using them. (Marie Antoinette in the 1780’s inspired Regency fashion, 1816)

…the era was known as “neo-classical revival”, and it had an overwhelming effect on fashion.  Women wanted the light and diaphanous fashions like Greek statues.  This was the period written about by authors such as Jane Austen. (Featured: Jane Austen’s book.  Below: “Pride and Prejudice” movie, the sisters attend a …

The Regency Era Women’s fashions at the turn of the 19th century display the results of the Napoleonic Wars, inc which fashion absorbed influences from the Middle East.  Exotic fabrics, turbans, transparent cotton muslins, feathers. exotic jewelry, and a taste for Classical Greece followed. (Feature: 1803 French fashion extant and …

…kind to older and larger women. (Cartoon from 1800 British Periodical)

… at the turn of the 18th into the 19th century, stays were largely discarded.  Women with imperfect or larger bodies and older women, however, continued to wear stays.  As long as they were high waisted, they could be worn under the Regency gowns. (1790’s short stays went shorter yet, …

… like in the earlier decades, and as the decade progressed, many stays lost tabs entirely, but kept a little “tail” at the back to carry the lacing.  Sometimes puffs of fabric were attached to the back of this type of stays to which a bustle pad or petticoat was …

… the change of stays.  While the front of the stays in the 1790’s looked much the same as in the 1780’s, the back waist of the stays rose up high to match the high waist of the upcoming Regency style.  The front of the silhouette was still forward “pigeon” …

…scoop front stays.  The only real difference between these and the earlier stays of a decade earlier was the shape of the front.  In the latter, the front was cut low, but horizontal boning emphasized  and reinforced jutting the bust forward without letting it spill over. (Extant: Brown linen stays …