1790s Jumps/Transitional Stays

In researching my early turn of the century Napoleonic impression, I came across this Jump in the V&A museum. It is dated 1790-95. In the V&A Undergarment book it provides a lot more information including how stays like this are useful as decorative outer wear as well as a functional/practical undergarment.

I loved the look of this transitional corset and decided to try and copy it. I was also very proud as in undertaking this project I had my first attempt at dying fabric. The cotton sateen was a cream colour to begin with. I ended up making two batches of fabric to get the colour right.

 This photo actually distorts the colour.

The toile, I had to actually draw the boning channels onto it to get it lined up correctly.

I was really excited to complete this process completely correctly (or as correctly as I could). Therefore, it is completely hand sewn.  The only part that is incorrect is the boning. As I can not use real whale bone, I chose to use some spiral boning for the 8 bones. These were wider than the original bones, which resulted in the widths of my channels being wider. I am not overly concerned about this as I still thing that it looks amazing on. I also found that it is very comfortable as well. I found the visible stitching very challenging and I look forward to undertaking more projects with decoration and maybe even some embroidery in the future.

The eyelet holes were made using a belt hole punch and then was embroidered using a blanket stitch. I copied this detail from the V&A undergarment book, which has close up photos. The offset coloured holes look really nice and are also very useful in lacing up the corset.

 The tape is also stitched down using a green top stitch, which is a really nice subtle detail.

From the photos I was able to see that on the center back of the corset had stitches running vertically behind the crosses. I decided to keep this in decorating all of the cross sections. It really helps to strengthen and reinforce next to the boning.

 I did not have any details of the colours of the stitches in the back so I created my own colour combination for the cross stitching on the back and shoulders.

The Challenge 4# Embellish
Fabric: Cotton Sateen, White Cotton Lining

Pattern: None - drafted using squares and triangle layouts
Year: ca. 1790

Notions: Pink Cotton Twill Tape, Cotton Embroidery Thread, White Cotton Corset String

How historically accurate is it? I believe that this is accurate, minus using spiral boning

Hours to complete: about 40 hours (I had to unpick the visible stitches multiple times)
First worn: today to take the completed photos

Total cost: $4 for Thread, $9 for Corset String,  approx. $15 Spiral Boning, $8 for Twill Tape, $16 for Dyes and fabric from my stash