I think I need to learn how to YouTube*), for the single express purpose of really piercing the self-perpetuating social media bubble of "Regency short stays".
*) i.e. how to shoot and edit and present a really good YouTube video that catches on
If you're the least bit interested in historical costuming, you've undoubtedly seen them. Everyone and their grandmother makes them. The bra of Regency. The short, laced, bust-gussetted, straight-hemmed stays.
There's only one little problem with them: There does not seem to be. A. Single. Extant. Example.
Fat old zero.
Which is exactly why I, a hater of using images without permission / public access, don't have an image to illustrate this post.
People in the old blogosphere, specifically the blogs Kleidung um 1800 & Atelier Nostalgia, noticed and raised a concern in the 2010s; back in 2013 for the first one, I think 2015 in the latter case. Unfortunately for historical costuming research and the fight against reenactorisms, that was exactly the point when new "instant" social media really started gaining traction at the expense of the good old "record for posterity" blogosphere. So few people actually took notice, most of the existing record for posterity is the old blog posts that do make "Regency short stays", there is a multi-size pattern available of course, and now it's 2025, I STILL have yet to see a single extant example, and people are STILL making them (and new patterns for them, too).
There's nuance - there always is. I have no problem with Regency short stays as a concept. There are OTHER extant examples that might be categorised as short stays. There is textual evidence that the term was used in period - unfortunately we simply have no idea what exactly it referred to; it is, to the best of my knowledge, never linked to a description or image - we only also know it was a lighter, less restricting garment. Sabine of Kleidung um 1800 had a theory which I used to think was a good one but which I'm now not so sure of; in the Real Life craziness of the past five years, I've forgotten most of my reasoning either way. (And I lack access to some of her sources so I cannot form a truly informed opinion.)
What I do remember is the romp through Google results and Internet Archive and personal memory (it's good to have good longterm memory for something like this), and someone else's personal memory in a Regency costuming Facebook group. (Currently trying to track it down again but social media search is what it is.) All of which unearthed the fact that the reason everyone makes "short stays" the way they do can probably be traced back to a single source: the Sense & Sensibility Regency Underthings pattern from 2006 (IIRC). It predates every other instance of short stays in this particular form that I could find. Quite aside from S&S no longer being the doyen of historical costuming patterns it once was because we have moved on to better, less problematic patternmakers... it's a problematic source because it does not provide actual evidence for their claim of being based on extants. I guess they could get away with it in the old, less image-heavy internet. And the other personal memory recalled that when such an evidence was provided in a closed group, in a long-defunct online forum, the extant garment in question actually had an unfinished bottom.
So. This whole thing is based on
a) an extant outlier (which in itself may not mean anything, survivorship bias being what it is)
b) that very well may not have started out in that form.
And, well, just as "Regency short stays" make perfect sense to modern costumers because they're long stays, shortened... well, it's entirely possible, indeed quite plausible, that that's literally what they are, and not actually, you know, the actual thing referred to as "short stays" in the period.
It's pretty... concerning? ironic? that, if my research is correct, this particular reenactorism only had six to seven years to gain traction before someone went "now wait a minute, this garment everyone makes is actually not based on extant evidence", and it's now been longer since that and it's only gaining more and more traction. So. Someone should do something about that, and I realise it probably needs to be me but I'm not a social media animal.
We should move on to better things; just as the "Kyoto wrap bra" was debunked, we should also debunk "Regency short stays".
But also. Nuance. I don't particularly care if you make them because they work for you as a person costuming for fun. I have no legs to stand on regarding what goes on under my Regency clothes. And it's a plausible solution, because there's a really high degree of variability and experimentation involved in Regency corsetry so who's to say no one ever came up with this one.
It's plausible, but it's not prove-ably historically accurate, and there's a difference.
What I do have a problem with is the very public social media presentation and perpetuation of the idea that this is a historically accurate solution, supported by always the same two images that actually show different types of garments (another thing that traces back to Sense & Sensibility Patterns!). The idea that these are - as I have heard someone random say in a YouTube video - "the real Regency stays". To the best of our current evidence-based knowledge, they're not.
Seriously. I've seen a freaking chemise with bust gussets before I've seen "Regency short stays".
