Regency boobs support woes

[green_martha]

I'm fighting with the Simplicity/Sense&Sensibility short stays pattern. And I can tell you that my boobs are NOT in the place where an average woman's boobs are. Methinks I have some patterning to make tonight.
Onto mock-up #2... Never surrender, never give up... *goes forth clapping hands in a stupid way*

Comments

[jehanni.livejournal.com]

What I've heard is that when Sense & Sensibility sold her patterns to Simplicity, she emphasized that they are meant to be extremely close fitting in the bodice, and had been drafted that way--and that Simplicity re-drafted them with 3 inches of "ease" to fit modern conventions. Doh!

That said--and operating under that idea--I made the short stays recently, scaled up to fit my 43 DD-DDD chest. Since I have the luxury of a sewing group to discuss fit with, I brought my first, pretty much straight from the pattern, mock-up to Sewing, and had the group debate the fit. They recommended adding 2 inches to the center front opening, and 1 inch between the gussets, because the chest was not wide enough (originally both gussets fell to the outside of the nipple/bust point, and they're supposed to straddle it), and also adding about an inch and a half to the height, because of the muffins-on-a-platter effect. (I find most patterns for large-cup women add horizontal inches, but forget that they are covering a 3-D globe, and that the vertical dimension also needs inches: cantalopes are not just wider than grapefruits or tomatoes, they are "deeper", too).

I made up my second mock-up--and had to reduce the inches at the center front because the lacing holes overlapped this time, instead of butting, or leaving any gap. Oops! I also put in a drawstring false chemise front about 2 inches taller the top edge of the stays, to keep down the "waterfall effect" that sometimes happens (that vertical dimension again), and because I was in a hurry, put on a petticoat skirt so I didn't need a chemise at all.

The resulting stays work pretty well, but if I make them again, and I think I will make the bust gusset longer, and taper it in again a little at the top, to add to the containment properties. Not all of us are Regency sylphs.

[green-martha.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that was really helpful. I might very well go for the bodiced petticoat version.