Some Definitions Please!

[ghoulstonstreet]

Stays weren't in the Way

Thanks all again. The stays are mentioned I think by a coroner who says that they "did not get in the way" of the killer's knife. Interesting. Maybe since they are a bosom gadget they were high enough to be out of the way. I think this regards Chapman's murder.

[lynn cates]

graphic depiction

Hello All. This may be of help.

http://www.nwta.com/patterns/pics/ebaystays/ebaystays.html

Cheers.
LC

[curious]

Hello All. This may be of help.

http://www.nwta.com/patterns/pics/ebaystays/ebaystays.html

Cheers.
LC

excellent. and who can forget the scene in "Gone With The Wind" when Scarlett is holding onto the bedpost and Mammy is pulling her stays tighter and tighter to get her to fit into the dress she was determined to wear!

It's no wonder women of the era were always fainting -- they couldn't breathe wearing those contraptions.

curious

[lynn cates]

anoxia

Hello Curious.

"It's no wonder women of the era were always fainting -- they couldn't breathe wearing those contraptions."

That's right.

The best.
LC

[ghoulstonstreet]

excellent. and who can forget the scene in "Gone With The Wind" when Scarlett is holding onto the bedpost and Mammy is pulling her stays tighter and tighter to get her to fit into the dress she was determined to wear!

It's no wonder women of the era were always fainting -- they couldn't breathe wearing those contraptions.

curious

Thanks, curious! Now I've got the picture. Would have called that thing a corset.

[curious]

Thanks, curious! Now I've got the picture. Would have called that thing a corset.

thinking about it, it probably was. The stays are shorter, I suspect. Never having worn either one, I'm not positive.

[lynn cates]

comparison

Hello Curious.

"The stays are shorter, I suspect."

That's correct. And that's why the stays were no obstacle to the mutilation, whereas a corset would have been.

Also, the primary function of the corset is to slim the waist; secondarily, perhaps, to emphasise the bosom. With stays, those 2 functions are inverted.

The best.
LC

[Suzi]

Great stuff- faint faint!!!

B U T the poor dears trawling the streets had no chance to get hold of anything remotely beautiful or whalebone related - to breathe in and out was probably their best plan for survival!!-

I seem to recall there was some sort of thing at the time-that was made of some sort of stiffened cotton or something- whatever it was (Must remember!)- it was cheap tho !!! Was it cambric??

1 - 2 - 3 -After me- B R E A T H E

[Sam Flynn]

"What does a deerstalker hat actually look like?"

Remember the old Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes movies? The hat he wore whilst sleuthing was one.

A more rudimentary form of deerstalker was also commonly worn by dockyard labourers of the period.

[DVV]

Hi Sam,

with 2 peaks also?

Amitiés,
David

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sam,

with 2 peaks also?

I wouldn't know if they did, Dave - all I know is that it wasn't just middle-class sleuthing types who wore 'em!

[DVV]

I wouldn't know if they did, Dave - all I know is that it wasn't just middle-class sleuthing types who wore 'em!

Too bad, Sam.
Shabby-Genteel and Sailor-Man with the same cap...

Amitiés,
David

[Archaic]

Stays

Hi, Ghoustonstreet.

I'll see if I can explain 'stays' to you: Do you know what a bustier or a corset looks like?
It's a garment that covers the chest and some of the abdomen & serves as both a waist-cincher & a semi push-up bra.
Bras as we know them today hadn't been invented yet, so 19th & early 20th C. women had few options.

Corsets didn't offer the kind of support and elasticity that modern lingerie does, instead they used a combination of stiff support rods- the stays- and tightly criss-crossed lacing to achieve "control". An extremely small waist was fashionable, so corsets were often cinched very tightly to achieve that ideal.

The "stays" are specifically the firm supports sewn within the corset; in the LVP they were usually made of slender lengths of whale-bone.
The phrase "stays" eventually came to mean the whole corset, and that's how the doctors use it in discussing the Whitechapel victims.
Corsets were made in different lengths, depending on how much "control" the lady wanted or could afford.

To not wear a corset in public was considered indecent and made one "a loose woman" -literally!

Here's a link explaining the terms more fully: http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/...s.php?index=10

Hope that helps.
Best regards, Archaic

[robhouse]

I have just heard it said (on the BBC's radio show "My Word") that the Wideawake Hat was named because "it was made of some kind of felt which didn't have or didn't take a nap."

[Wickerman]

I have just heard it said (on the BBC's radio show "My Word") that the Wideawake Hat was named because "it was made of some kind of felt which didn't have or didn't take a nap."

Which then begs the question, "what is a nap?"

Luckly, I'm trusting my wife here (ex weaver), the "nap" is the length of hair? or fibre, or that which can be brushed. A leather hat has no nap, a silk hat has a short nap which is brushed in one direction only.

If this is the case then a Wideawake hat is made of a material which does not require being brushed, is that what we are to understand?
So a Wideawake hat is not a style but refers to the material it is made from?

Anyone care to ellaborate?

Thanks, Jon S.