A Regency Lady’s Underwear

There’s lots of contradicting information about a Regency lady’s underwear. It’s not helped when TV and film productions continue to get things wrong regarding the Regency wardrobe. What is a chemise? Did women need to grit their teeth when donning a corset? Did ladies wear knickers, or not?

I will answer these questions and more as I unravel the mysteries of the Regency lady’s underwear. Yes, it’s time to mention the unmentionables.

The Shift

The first layer of a Regency lady’s underwear was the shift. This was designed to sit against the skin and absorb moisture. The shift provided a barrier between the expensive outer layers that could not be washed, such as wool or silk.

The word “shift” was the centuries-old English word. During the Regency, people started using the French word “chemise”.

A shift was made from linen (then cotton from the nineteenth century) which had to be robust to withstand harsh laundry methods such as long soaking, boiling and beating. Shifts were a simple T-shaped, knee-length tunic with a round neckline that sometimes featured a drawstring.

In a large household, shifts were marked with the owner’s initials and a number. This meant the housekeeper could keep track of what had been washed and worn, and ensure a clean supply was always available.

Regency lady's underwear — Chemise, linen, c.1790-1810.

Stockings

Stockings reached above the knee and were tied with garters (silk ribbons if you were rich) above the knee. If you wanted to go for a walk or dance at a ball, you may want to secure the stocking below the knee to avoid them slipping down. Regardless, there was always a certain amount of wrinkling because of the lack of stretchy yarn.

Stockings came in various materials depending on the weather and activity, for example, wool for the winter and silk for evening wear. They were also available in many colours, from drab and practical deep hues for walking or bright colours. Evening wear stockings often featured embroidery at the ankles.

Corsets or Stays?

Okay, the items that supported the bust before and during the Regency were called stays and were not tightly laced. Corsets are the thick fabric, heavily boned and rigidly shaped underwear worn from the mid-nineteenth century. Stays are plain linen and lightly shaped, usually with whalebone.

Before the 1790s, stays were a conical shape. Empire-line gowns created the need for column-like silhouettes. Stays now featured a cup to create the desired bustline and a ridged busk (a flat, narrow strip of wood, bone or ivory to keep the bodice rigid) down the front.

A lady’s stays were not painful or restricting, except for the shoulder straps, which may have made raising the arms difficult. Stays were comfortable to wear, and one could run in them, not that ladies were supposed to exert themselves in such a fashion. How scandalous!

Stays came in two styles, long which covered the hips, and featured laces up the back, or shorter styles which ended just above the ribs and featured long ties or laces up the front that enabled the wearer to put them on without assistance.

Petticoat

Petticoats were also made from durable and washable fabric, like linen, and went over the stays to cover the hips and legs.

Before the 1790s, petticoats were held by a drawstring at the waist. To avoid ruining the smooth, long lines of the high-waisted dresses of the Regency, petticoats now featured shoulder straps or were held in place with tapes just below the bustline.

Knickers or Not?

In her letters, Jane Austen spends much time discussing her wardrobe. However, in her book, Hilary Davidson does not mention drawers once. This may be because ladies did not openly discuss anything regarding intimate female body parts, or Miss Austen did not wear them.

First, drawers are two tubes of fabric held in place at the waist with a drawstring. They’re called drawers because they were drawn on the legs and they came in pairs. Therefore, we still say “a pair of knickers”. Drawers had no crotch or gusset (I know some people hate those words, but don’t cringe) to make trips to the bathroom a little easier beneath the layers of skirts and petticoats.

There’s a lot of debate about whether Regency ladies wore drawers. While researching this blog, I came across differing opinions. What’s clear is women did not wear drawers before the 1790s.

Drawers

The French Revolution heralded greater freedom of female dress. The thin muslins and silks of the Empire-line gowns replaced the heavier fabric and multi-petticoated styles of dress, and women felt the cold. So, to keep warm, they wore men’s pantaloons beneath their dresses. These then became feminised to “pantalettes”.

Pantalettes extended below the calf and often had a little frill at the bottom. They were meant to be seen and to tantalise. Over time, pantalettes got shorter and became known as drawers, but respectable ladies did not wear them. Drawers were associated with prostitutes who supposedly took advantage of the open crotch to tempt customers with their wares. Oh, the thought!

According to Ian Mortimer, by 1815, more and more respectable women were wearing drawers, but some still considered it bold to wear them because of their erotic connotations. Anne Lister was one of those bold women who wore her drawers undeterred and even gave them as gifts to her friends. We know that by the time Queen Victoria came to the throne (1837), drawers were a staple of the female wardrobe.

So, I think we can conclude that some women, perhaps the early adopters, the ones who liked to defy convention and keep up with changing fashions did wear drawers while the older, more conservative ladies who clung to their respectability like a safety blanket and did not mind a drafty underskirt did not.