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 1 Halftitle page 2 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 Notes to the reader 10 List of abbreviations 11 Introduction Investigating the structured female body 12 Gender and the dressed body 15 Making, consumption and meaning: examining women’s lives through material culture 17 Experimental history and the embodied turn 21 Chapter outline 28 1 The foundations of the body Foundation garments and the early modern female silhouette 30 Women’s structural fashions before the mid-sixteenth century 31 The sculptural body: the Elizabethan and Jacobean silhouette 39 The softer body: the superficial relaxation of the Caroline silhouette 48 Ambiguous bodies: underwear, outerwear and the Restoration silhouette 57 Conclusion 65 2 The artificial body Courtiers, gentlewomen and disputed visions of femininity, 1560–1650 68 Shaping the aristocratic body 69 Critiques of fashion and the artificial body 86 Anti-court sentiments and disputed visions of femininity 93 Conclusion 96 3 The socially mobile body Consumption of foundation garments by middling and common women, 1560–1650 98 Evidence of consumption of foundation garments by the middling and common sorts 100 Affordability and modes of consumption 112 Foundation garments and upward social mobility 117 Conclusion 125 4 The body makers Commissioning and making foundation garments in early modern England 128 The body-making and farthingale-making trades 129 Commissioning and buying foundation garments: interactions between consumers and artisans 135 Making and observation: the evolution in design and tacit skills of body-makers 143 Making and experimentation: recovering the artisanal knowledge of farthingale-makers 154 Conclusion 162 5 The everyday body Assumptions, tropes and the lived experience 164 The life cycle, disease and deformity 165 Bodies: movement and everyday life 172 Farthingales: walking, sitting and everyday life 185 Gendered perceptions of size and space 190 Conclusion 197 6 The sexual body Eroticism, reproduction and control 200 Foundation garments, eroticism and sexual desire 200 Sexual temptation and feminine deception 208 Pregnancy and concealment 212 Regulating sexual female bodies 222 Conclusion 230 7 The respectable body Rising consumption and the changing sensibilities of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England 232 Changing consumption practices of the late seventeenth century 233 From bodies to stays: changing terminology and female morality 241 The busk and changing romantic sensibilities 247 Rolls and hoops: skirting the boundaries of politeness and gentility 255 Conclusion 258 Conclusion Misconceptions and legacies 260 Glossary 266 Notes 272 Bibliography 308 Illustrations 326 Index 338 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