A stomacher is a decorated triangular panel that fills in the front opening of a woman's
gown
A gown, from the Saxon word, ''gunna'', is a usually loose outer garment from knee-to-full-length worn by men and women in Europe from the Early Middle Ages to the 17th century, and continuing today in certain professions; later, the term ''gow ...
or
bodice
A bodice () is an article of clothing traditionally for women and girls, covering the torso from the neck to the waist. The term typically refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to th ...
. The stomacher may be boned, as part of a
corset, or may cover the triangular front of a corset. If simply decorative, the stomacher lies over the triangular front panel of the stays, being either stitched or pinned into place, or held in place by the lacings of the gown's bodice.
A
stomacher may also be a piece or set of
jewellery
Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry ( U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a we ...
to ornament a stomacher or bodice.
Early stomachers
In the 15th and 16th centuries, men and women both wore decorative stomachers (often called placards or plackets) with open-fronted
doublets and gowns. The form and style of these stomachers in combination with the headgear is often used to date paintings to a certain time period.
In 1603,
Elizabeth Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton, who was pregnant, wrote to her husband in London asking him to buy her a stomacher, 'buy me a "stumiger" of scarlet, half a yard broad, and as long at least, lined with plush to keep my belly warm a days when I must ride.
[M. Giuseppi, ''HMC Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Salisbury'', vol. 15 (London, 1930), p. 204.]
Some 17th-century women's stomachers of the Northern Netherlands:
File:Frans Hals 045.jpg, Stomacher c. 1620
File:Attributed to Pieter Claesz. Soutman 001.jpg, Stomacher c. 1630
File:Frans Hals - Portrait of a Woman Holding a Fan - WGA11135.jpg, Stomacher c. 1640
File:Frans Hals - Portrait d'Isabella Coymans.jpg, Stomacher c. 1650
Later stomachers
Stomachers were in and out of fashion through the 17th and 18th centuries, varying in style and decoration, throughout
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
and
North America.
From about 1740, most gowns and bodices were worn to reveal the stomacher, which covered the front of the
torso
The torso or trunk is an anatomical term for the central part, or the core, of the body of many animals (including humans), from which the head, neck
The neck is the part of the body on many vertebrates that connects the head with the tors ...
from neckline to
waist
The waist is the part of the abdomen between the rib cage and hips. On people with slim bodies, the waist is the narrowest part of the torso.
''Waistline'' refers to the horizontal line where the waist is narrowest, or to the general appear ...
or even below the waist. The bodice's lacings would then criss-cross over the stomacher, and eventually the lacings became a series of decorative bows.
Stomachers were often embroidered, or covered in
pearl
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium ca ...
s and other
jewels. They could be made of the same
fabric
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
as the dress or of a contrasting fabric. Depending on the period, their bottom point was at waist level, or lower; towards the end of the 18th Century they could be as deep as 10 inches below the waistline, making it impossible for the woman wearing them to sit.
Necklines also defined the length of a stomacher. There was a brief period during the court of
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...
, when the neckline and stomacher actually were below the
breast
The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues.
In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and s ...
s, which were covered by a transparent ruffle of fabric called a
fichu.
See also
*
Fashion from 1500–1550,
1550–1600,
1600–1650,
1650–1700,
1700–1750, and
1750–1795
*
Dudou
A ''dudou'' (; also known by other names) is a traditional Chinese form of the bodice, originally worn as an undershirt with medicinal properties. With the opening of China, it is sometimes encountered in Western and modern Chinese fashion ...
, a Chinese undershirt sometimes known as a "stomacher"
References
*Arnold, Janet: ''Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd'', W S Maney and Son Ltd, Leeds 1988.
*Arnold, Janet: ''Patterns of Fashion: the cut and construction of clothes for men and women 1560–1620'', Macmillan 1985. Revised edition 1986. ()
*Ashelford, Jane: ''The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500–1914'', Abrams, 1996.
*Baumgarten, Linda: ''What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America'', Yale University Press, 2002.
*
Cunnington, C. Willett and
Phillis Emily Cunnington: ''Handbook of English Costume in the Eighteenth Century''. London: Faber, 1972.
*Payne, Blanche: ''History of Costume from the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century'', Harper & Row, 1965. No ISBN for this edition; ASIN B0006BMNFS
*
Ribeiro, Aileen: ''Dress in Eighteenth Century Europe 1715–1789'', Yale University Press, 2002,
External links
{{Commons category, Stomachers
18th Century StomachersEmbroidered bodice (stomacher), ca. 1740, in the Staten Island Historical Society Online Collection Database
History of clothing (Western fashion)
18th-century fashion