A Fashionable Confinement: Whaleboned Stays and the Pregnant Woman

Abstract

For around 400 years fashion and decency required a neatly boned body, yet at the same time many women spent much of their adult lives pregnant. How women were able to dress would affect their role in public society, yet letters and diaries show little reduction in their daily activities. Evidence of what was actually worn is scarce, perhaps because the dilemma was not so great as we imagine — whenever clothing is mentioned or depicted we see women wearing normal garments adapted with the addition of one or two items. Front-lacing stays could be adapted with stomachers, and some back-lacing ones exist with additional side-lacing; both styles would suit the pregnant and non-pregnant state alike. It is not until the nineteenth century that specific maternity corsets and clothing begin to appear, when general corset design and fashion styles became impossible to adapt without structural alteration.