Woman's Corset1730-1740

Not on view

Historical back-lacing stays or corset in ivory fabric with floral side panels, boning channels, cross-laced center back, and attached padded hip rolls

Close-up detail of a woven textile with overlapping cream-colored ribbon or tape bands revealing floral brocade fabric beneath in muted pink, green, and brown tones.

Close-up detail of woven textile with cream-colored brocade, featuring diagonal pleated or folded ribbon trim and floral pattern in muted rose, sage green, and soft blue.

Title: Woman's Corset
Place Made: France
Date Made: 1730-1740
Medium: Silk plain weave with supplementary weft-float patterning
Dimensions: Center back length: 16 1/2 in. (41.91 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. Jack Cole
Accession Number: 63.24.5
Classification: Costumes
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: Fashionable eighteenth-century corsets were shaped with a series of meticulously stitched, extremely narrow channels inserted with strips of flexible, lightweight baleen or whalebone (the hardened hairlike fibers lining the roof of a baleen whale’s mouth). They were tightly laced at the back and stiffened in the front with a busk—a strip of bone, metal, or wood. Decorated at the front, corsets such as this one were meant to be visible and worn with an open robe.
Selected Bibliography: Maeder, Edward et al.. An Elegant Art: Fashion & Fantasy in the Eighteenth Century. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1983.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Deux Siècles de Mode Européenne, 1700-1915. Paris: Arts Décoratifs; Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books-Prestel, 2013.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books/Prestel, 2010.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Europäische Moden, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Prestel, 2012.

Woman's Corset1730-1740

Not on view

Title: Woman's Corset
Place Made: France
Date Made: 1730-1740
Medium: Silk plain weave with supplementary weft-float patterning
Dimensions: Center back length: 16 1/2 in. (41.91 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. Jack Cole
Accession Number: 63.24.5
Classification: Costumes
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: Fashionable eighteenth-century corsets were shaped with a series of meticulously stitched, extremely narrow channels inserted with strips of flexible, lightweight baleen or whalebone (the hardened hairlike fibers lining the roof of a baleen whale’s mouth). They were tightly laced at the back and stiffened in the front with a busk—a strip of bone, metal, or wood. Decorated at the front, corsets such as this one were meant to be visible and worn with an open robe.
Selected Bibliography: Maeder, Edward et al.. An Elegant Art: Fashion & Fantasy in the Eighteenth Century. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1983.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Deux Siècles de Mode Européenne, 1700-1915. Paris: Arts Décoratifs; Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books-Prestel, 2013.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Delmonico Books/Prestel, 2010.
Takeda, Sharon Sadako and Kaye Durland Spilker. Fashioning Fashion: Europäische Moden, 1700-1915. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: Prestel, 2012.