One More Little Corset

Susan reports:

Here's one more example of 18th c. child-sized stays as reproduced by the mantua-makers of Colonial Williamsburg. (These are the same stays mentioned by our reader Abby, a former intern in the shop, who remembered showing them to fascinated visitors.) These really are tiny, sized for an infant, and stiffened not with baleen, but with pasteboard – we'd call it cardboard. The lacings are on the back of the stays.