Supportive underwear in the 15th century

Konrad von Ammenhausen Hagenau, 1467
Art isn't the surest source as a painter can paint what he or she want, but the clevage suggest
support and I really like the side-lacing.

As I mentioned in my previous post on 15^th century clothes, my first step will be to make supportive underwear. Some comments recommended me to make a snugly fitted shift/kirtle instead and I am sure that can be a very functional breast support. Not for me, though. I have made plans for medieval clothes before and even started, trying this method and it just doesn’t work for me. I have a large bust but a very narrow ribcage, my under bust measurement is actually the narrowest part of my torso and the difference between bust and under bust is 35 cm (almost 14 inches). To give me support I need to overfit the garment up to a point that it looks silly and feel uncomfortable and it put a lot of strain on the fabric. This is why I want to solve the support problem with a separate garment so I can fit my kirtle to look nice instead of too tight. Perhaps separate supportive underwear wasn’t very common, but as there are textual evidence on some kind of support, paintings of women in garments that looks like they could have a supportive function, and, of course, the extant clothes found in Lengberg Castle, which is enough for me. Especially as I will never make any clothes before from 1500 without it.

So, the Lengberg brassiere. Or, rather, one of them as there were actually four found in Lengberg Castle in 2008 among a whole cache of textile fragments. Two of them have been carbon dated to the 15^th century. So far no close examination have been published, though one can hope that it will be available in the future along with, of course, patterns. Here is a quote by Beatrix Nutz from Medievallingerie from Lengberg Castle, East-Tyrol. 

Four linen textiles resemble modern time bras. The criterion for this classification is the presence of distinct cut cups. The two more fragmented specimens appear to be a combination of a bra and a short shirt. They end right below the breast but have additional cloth above the cups to cover the décolleté, and no sleeves. Both “bras” have decorated lower ends. Finger-loop-laces (laces worked in loop manipulating braiding technique) are sewn onto the hem with lace-stitches resulting in simple needle-lace. Besides its decorative function - one that cannot be seen anyway when worn under a dress - this also serves as reinforcement for the hem and adds further support to the breasts.

The third “bra” looks a lot more like modern bras with two broad shoulder straps and a possible back strap, not preserved but indicated by partially torn edges of the cups onto which it was attached. The knot in the shoulder straps is secondary. This “bra” is also the most elaborately decorated with needle-lace on the shoulder straps, sprang-work between the two cups and, like the two aforementioned “bras”, a finger-loop-lace and needle-lace at the lower end.

The fourth “bra” is the one that resembles a modern bra the most.  At the first assessment this garment was referred to in German as “Mieder” (= corselette in English) by the excavating archaeologists. It can also be described with the term “longline bra”. The cups are each made from two pieces of linen sewn together vertically. The surrounding fabric of somewhat coarser linen extends down to the bottom of the ribcage with a row of six eyelets on the left side of the body for fastening with a lace. The corresponding row of eyelets is missing. Needle-lace is sewn onto the cups and the fabric above thus decorating the cleavage. In the triangular area between the two cups there might have been additional decoration, maybe another sprang-work.

 

She has also written Medieval Underwear which contains some more information. 

 

However, the most detailed information by Beatrix Nutz can be found in Bras in the 15thcentury, A Preliminary Report. You will need to register at Academia.edu to download the article, but that’s pretty easy to do. 

 

Medieval Silkworm has two interesting articles at her blog with lots of quotes and pictures:

Supportive underwear in written sources 

 

Medieval supportive underwear

 

By My Measure also has an interesting article: On cleavage and Breast Mounds

I don’t know, yet, if this kind of supportive garment will work for me, but I think there are good chances. Katafalk has a similar figure to mine and her version of the Lengberg brassiere seems to giver her good support as well as being comfortable. 

 

A few other recreations:

 

By My Measure: Breastbags and Kerchiefs

 

Crafty Agatha: 15^th century Lingerie 

 

Renikas Anachronistic Adventures: All dressed up Housebook style 

 

Deventer Burgerscap: Making My Bra Shirt, part 1 

 

Mady’s SCA Sewing Thingy: Under There!

 

 

 

 

 

What a man wore under his breeches



Couple with an Escaped Bird by Louis-Léopold Boilly, late 18th century 

 Now and then people ask about men's underwear in the 18th century. For a very long time I thought that they just had shirts. Though it seemed rather uncomfortable to not wear anything under the breeches, a long shirt would probably serve as a protective layer between skin and clothes. There are, however, a number of paintings and engravings of men with their clothes in disarray where you can clearly see that under the breeches you can see white knee-length underwear. Here on a painting by Boilly, where the straps are undone and the stockings folded. Quite shocking.

Linen underpants, 18th century, No. 22995, Armémuseum

Lucky us, we have more than just paintings. At Armémuseum in Stockholm a pair of "lårfoder" (thigh lining) have been preserved. They were a part of the standard uniform in Sweden in the 17th century and where made in coarse linen. I have seen them up close, and they didn't seem to have been very comfortable. But with unifrom breeches in heavvy wool, I guess linen underwear, even if coarse, was to be preferred.

Livrustkammaren in Stockholm has no less than two pairs of men's underwear in the same style as the one at Armémuseum. These, however, are made of fine linen and have belonged to King Karl XIV Johan before he became king of Sweden and was Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's generals. They are dated to 1763-1818 and are probably French. They are quite similar to each other, so I just add the description of pair 21667:

Whiten linen underpants, 1763-1818, No. 21167, Livrustkammaren

Knee-length pants of white linen. Low-cut at the waist front and higher back. The waistband is wide in the front and tapers down toward the back, 70-60 mm wide. They are made with an inner and outside seam and a crotch seam. All seams are covered by a narrow white linen tape, 3 mm wide over the crotch seam and inner seams and 18-10 mm wide on the outer seams. The front has a large V-shaped slit, 147 mm long that fastens at the top with two white fabric-covered buttons. The button holes are 20 mm wide. Slit finished with a 4 mm wide band. The legs are finished with a 15 mm wide. The outside of the legs has 147 mm high slits which are tied together with white linen tape, 15 mm wide and between 430-490 mm ​​long. The back of a v-shaped slit, 130 mm long. The width of the waist is regulated by a 70 mm wide band entered through four eyelets, two on each side. The strips are crossed on the inside. The top edge of the waistband at the back is marked "IB" in red cross stitch. (Jean Baptise) On the inside of the waistband there is a "B" with white stitches.

Whiten linen underpants, 1763-1818, No. 21166, Livrustkammaren

So, evidently time to make gentlemen linen pants to wear underneath. As for ladies, even though there are no extant example, the Danish princess Sophia Magdalena had some 40 pairs of black knitted silk knickers in her trosseau when she came to Sweden to marry Gustaf III in 1766. Not for modesty's sake, but to fight the chill of the cold Royal castle.

L'epouse indiscrète, early 1780's

A shifty question

Namely, what kind of chemise to go under a 17th century gown? The sleeves are easy- voluminous seems to be the keyboard. And though I have seen cuffs, the style I like is when there seems to but no cuff and all the excess fabric is folded, back or in loose pleats. Like here, where the shift sleeves seems to have been tucked up with the sleeve and then a decorative pin is used to keep it all in place:

The sleeves look like they have been either pinned up or basted to the gown’s sleeves.

(Black sleeve from a Swedish painting)
So the sleeves are no problem, but how to make the body of the shift? The neckline treatment can look very different. Looking through Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashions 4, I find that most of the shifts are versions of this (Or rather, thjis is a modern version of that...). I don’t think I’m too far-fetched is I assumes that these are made up that way:

It’s nothing wrong with this kind of chemise. It’s easy to make and the chemise itself looks very nice. I have one. I just don’t want it with a 17th century gown. Then these are many painting where you just see the edge of the shift along the neckline.

They could be the gathered kind of chemise, I suppose, but they look, at least in my eyes, to be much smoother. When we see more of it, the wrinkling gets more horizontal than vertical.

And lucky us! The very last pattern in Patterns of Fashion 4 is a shift that fits the bill. It is thought to have belonged to Catherine of Braganza and though it has very wide sleeves, though the neckline is shaped like a smooth oval with a slit in the front.

My books are still unpacked so I can’t give you a direct quote, but I’ve read in more than one book, that the shift was sometimes pulled out and folded over to make a simple collar. I think that would be pretty easy to do if you are wearing a Catherina of Braganza-type of shift.

Some even look like the slit is in place too!

To finish, let’s look at two examples of collars that imitates a folded out shift, if it isn’t the shift that imitates the collar.

This is a French gown, it could be a shift, but it’s so much more gossamer than the visible shift.

I really like the look of a shift that is folded to look like a collar, so that is the look I will go for. The Catherine of Braganza-shift is also unusual because it hasn’t triangular gores to give it width, but squares that are cartridge-pleated at the top. It would be fun to make a new pattern!

Note: In a try to be more consistent, I have tried to only use English picture sources and in case not, I will tell. However, the time frame is 1640s-1660s. I know that this will mean both puritans and Restoration, but I feel that the fashion didn’t change too dramatically under that period. Many of the paintings don’t have a more exact date than the decade. Also, if anyone wants to see the whole picture of one of my cropped ones, just tell me and I will post it.