Shaping Femininity : Foundation Garments, the Body and Women in Early Modern England

Shaping Femininity is the first large-scale study of the materiality, production, consumption and meanings of foundation garments for women in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, when the female silhouette underwent a dramatic change. During these centuries the desirable female body was achieved by using stiffened garments called bodies and farthingales. It was this structured female silhouette first seen in sixteenth-century fashionable dress that existed in various extremes in Western Europe and beyond in the form of stays, corsets, hoop skirts and crinolines until the twentieth century. With a nuanced approach that incorporates transdisciplinary methodologies and a stunning array of visual and written sources, the book reorients discussions about female foundation garments in English and wider European history. Far from being vain victims of fashion, women were calculated consumers who wore foundations garments for a variety of reasons: for practical considerations relating to the fit of everyday dress, to bodily beauty ideals, social status and modesty. The book argues that a history of bodies and farthingales is a history of the female body and these garments helped to shape and define changing notions of femininity in early modern England, notions that continue to influence western ideals today. Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout, this book offers a fascinating insight into dress and fashion in the early modern period, and offers much of value to all those interested in the history of early modern women and gender, material culture, and the history of the body, as well as curators and reconstructors. Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Contents Acknowledgements Notes to the reader List of abbreviations Introduction Investigating the structured female body Gender and the dressed body Making, consumption and meaning: examining women’s lives through material culture Experimental history and the embodied turn Chapter outline 1 The foundations of the body Foundation garments and the early modern female silhouette Women’s structural fashions before the mid-sixteenth century The sculptural body: the Elizabethan and Jacobean silhouette The softer body: the superficial relaxation of the Caroline silhouette Ambiguous bodies: underwear, outerwear and the Restoration silhouette Conclusion 2 The artificial body Courtiers, gentlewomen and disputed visions of femininity, 1560–1650 Shaping the aristocratic body Critiques of fashion and the artificial body Anti-court sentiments and disputed visions of femininity Conclusion 3 The socially mobile body Consumption of foundation garments by middling and common women, 1560–1650 Evidence of consumption of foundation garments by the middling and common sorts Affordability and modes of consumption Foundation garments and upward social mobility Conclusion 4 The body makers Commissioning and making foundation garments in early modern England The body-making and farthingale-making trades Commissioning and buying foundation garments: interactions between consumers and artisans Making and observation: the evolution in design and tacit skills of body-makers Making and experimentation: recovering the artisanal knowledge of farthingale-makers Conclusion 5 The everyday body Assumptions, tropes and the lived experience The life cycle, disease and deformity Bodies: movement and everyday life Farthingales: walking, sitting and everyday life Gendered perceptions of size and space Conclusion 6 The sexual body Eroticism, reproduction and control Foundation garments, eroticism and sexual desire Sexual temptation and feminine deception Pregnancy and concealment Regulating sexual female bodies Conclusion 7 The respectable body Rising consumption and the changing sensibilities of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England Changing consumption practices of the late seventeenth century From bodies to stays: changing terminology and female morality The busk and changing romantic sensibilities Rolls and hoops: skirting the boundaries of politeness and gentility Conclusion Conclusion Misconceptions and legacies Glossary Notes Bibliography Illustrations Index Highly Commended, Society for Renaissance Studies Biennial Book Prize 2022 In sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, the female silhouette underwent a dramatic change. This very structured form, created using garments called bodies and farthingales, existed in various extremes in Western Europe and beyond, in the form of stays, corsets, hoop petticoats and crinolines, right up until the twentieth century. With a nuanced approach that incorporates a stunning array of visual and written sources and drawing on transdisciplinary methodologies, Shaping Femininity explores the relationship between material culture and femininity by examining the lives of a wide range of women, from queens to courtiers, farmer's wives and servants, uncovering their lost voices and experiences. It reorients discussions about female foundation garments in English and wider European history, arguing that these objects of material culture began to shape and define changing notions of the feminine bodily ideal, social status, sexuality and modesty in the early modern period, influencing enduring Western notions of femininity. Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout, Shaping Femininity is the first large-scale exploration of the materiality, production, consumption and meanings of women's foundation garments in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. It offers a fascinating insight into dress and fashion in the early modern period, and offers much of value to all those interested in the history of early modern women and gender, material culture and consumption, and the history of the body, as well as curators and reconstructors. "Shaping Femininity is the first large-scale study of the materiality, production, consumption and meanings of foundation garments for women in 16th and 17th-century England, when the female silhouette underwent a dramatic change. With a nuanced approach that incorporates transdisciplinary methodologies and a stunning array of visual and written sources, the book reorients discussions about female foundation garments in English and wider European history. It argues that these objects of material culture, such as bodies, busks, farthingales and bum-rolls, shaped understandings of the female body and of beauty, social status, health, sexuality and modesty in early modern England, and thus influenced enduring western notions of femininity. Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout, this book offers a fascinating insight into dress and fashion in the early modern period, and offers much of value to all those interested in the history of early modern women and gender, material culture, and the history of the body, as well as curators and reconstructors."-- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Notes on the Text -- Introduction -- 1. The Material and Metaphorical Body: Foundation Garments and the Female Body -- 2. The Artificial Body: The Court, its Critics and Disputed Visions of Femininity in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England -- 3. The Mobile Body: Shaping the Ambitions of the Middling and Common Sorts -- 4. The Body Makers: Making and Buying Foundation Garments in Early Modern England -- 5. The Everyday Body: Health, Physicality and the Lived Experience -- 6. The Sexual Body: Eroticism, Reproduction and Control -- 7. The Respectable Body: Changing Sensibilities of Consumption in late Seventeenth-Century England -- Conclusion -- Glossary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index "Utilizing an array of both well known and rarely seen sources, Shaping Femininity explores how 16th and 17th-century foundation garments shaped the dressed female body in early modern England and consequently how enduring notions of western femininity were established"-- Provided by publisher