Myth busting 18th century stays (corsets)

Ok so here's a bit of myth busting for anyone considering making a set of stays of this era. It may change your mind about making one, so pay attention pls....

They make your waist smaller...Nope! In fact a properly fitting pair will enlarge your waist by about 2cm. They were created to give a long conical torso, not accentuate the natural curves. Stays do that by compressing the bust and then creating a straight diagonal line down to the hips. If you have a small waist the sad news is that your stays will likely not even fit tightly around that area. How small the waist goes depends upon the size of your bust, ribcage and your hips. The tiny waist effect is a result of creating a strong vertical line with the stays and pairing that with an enormous hipline created artificially with petticoats and paniers. The torso looks longer than it is because the bodice comes to a point far below the hips. It's all smoke and mirrors. 

They act like a superbra...Sadly, no this is not true. If you are small busted it's very likely your already tiny bust will be flattened and become non-existant with this set of stays. It's a bust compressor. So whatever you have will be flattened first, and only the top half will peek over the top of the stays. I'm a DD cup naturally and reduce to about a largish C cup with my stays on. If you are small chested then I'd suggest cutting the top of your stays down low so your bust has a chance to peek over the edge. Otherwise you will end up looking like a 10yr old. If you are large busted you may have to raise the top considerably to prevent spillage. I had to raise mine by about an inch. 

They will make you look slim...Well one would think so, but it's not actually true. Especially if you stand side-on. These stays simply smooth out the bumps and ditches in your natural body so you will lose quite a lot of the slimming aspects of your frame, like the hollow above and below your bust, your natural waist etc...To be replaced by a very straight-lined silhouette. It will give you a neater form but not necessarily a slimmer one. 

You don't need these stays to wear 18th century clothes...if you want to look like they did in the 18th century you will. It's all about the silhouette baby! You need a strongly vertical body with flat planes to look the way they did back them. Authentically cut 18th century clothes have almost no shaping in the front of the bodice because that part of the body should be flat. All the shaping's in the back. You can recut the style to fit a natural body shape but then you'll end up with something that doesn't sit right, has wrinkles where there shouldn't be any and the whole thing will look saggy and rubbish. They call the underwear, "underpinnings" for a reason. The rigidity of it was like a scaffold for hanging heavy loads of cloth from and have it sit right.