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This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

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The Regency Dandy’s Corset

August 10, 2010 by Vic

Even as women freed themselves for a short time from the confinement of corsets, the Regency dandy, following the Prince Regent’s fashion, began to constrict himself into a wasp-waisted and broad shouldered look. For men of a certain challenged physique, firm waists and tight stomachs were achieved through laced corsets. The sculpting of wide shoulders, bulging thighs, and fine calves was accomplished by well-placed pads, as the satiric image below shows.

 

Lacing a Dandy, 1819

 

There can be no doubt, indeed, that just as the large cravat resulted from defects in the royal neck, so the stays in later years became necessary to restrain the unwieldy proportions of the royal waist, and assumed by the dandies as an act of compliment to their patron. The caricatures of the day exhibit an Illustrious Personage lifted up and struggling to insert his legs into a pair of “leather”s of a size he was anxious to appear in –  which are securely lashed to the bed posts to give a sort of purchase in furtherance of his efforts – just as in 1784 stories were told of Monseigneur d’Artois, the brother of Louis XVI of France,  needing the aid of four tall lacqueys to put on and off, without creasing, his small clothes of a special make and kind. – Once a Week, Volume 10

 

Prince Regent at his toilet, Hugh Bonneville, Beau Brummell, This Charming Man, 2008

 

Corsets continued to be relatively popular among the ruling and military classes for the rest of the 19th century, and retained a significant following during the first part of the 20th century.

 

1812 Regency a la mode

 

Read more on the topic:

  • Tight-Lacing Men
  • Once a Week, Volume 10: Notes on Dandies, P 240-245

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Posted in jane austen, Popular culture, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency London, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency style, Regency World | Tagged Men's Regency corsets, Prince Regent, Prince Regent corset, Prince Regent toilet, Regency Dandy, Regency mens wear | 4 Comments

4 Responses

  1. on August 13, 2010 at 10:10 Karen

    The picture of Hugh Bonneville, was this a movie he was in and is it available to be purchased? I like him as an actor and would be very interested to see something with detail about Prinny. He sounds like a vile man from what I’ve read of him.


  2. on August 13, 2010 at 15:08 Vic

    Karen, The film is entitled, This Charming Man. He plays Prinny very well!


  3. on August 15, 2010 at 02:35 Jean at The Delightful Repast

    Oh, dear. Doesn’t seem quite the done thing, does it? Of course, these days some men are getting calf implants and such!


  4. on May 22, 2012 at 08:46 The Distinctions of the Regency Dandy « Jane Austen's World

    […] The Regency Dandy’s Corset […]



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