Editing Corset (section)

===18th century===
Stays evolved in the 18th century, during which whalebone was used more, and increased boning was used in the garment. The shape of the stays changed as well. While they were low and wide in the front, they could reach as high as the upper shoulder in the back. Stays could be strapless or use shoulder straps. The straps of the stays were generally attached in the back and tied at the front.
[[File:Jumps, quilted linen with silk embroidery. Late 17th-early 18th century. 01.jpg|alt=A garment resembling a quilted vest with ties at the sides. It is decorated with red and green embroidered birds and flowers.|thumb|A pair of quilted linen jumps, late 17th-early 18th century]]
The purpose of 18th century stays was to support the bust and confer the fashionable conical torso shape, while drawing the shoulders back. At that time, the eyelets were reinforced with stitches and were not placed across from one another, but staggered. That allowed the stays to be spiral laced. One end of the stay lace was inserted into the bottom eyelet and knotted, and the other end was wound through the eyelets of the stays and tightened on the top. "Jumps" were a variant of stays, which were looser, had no boning, and sometimes had attached sleeves, like a jacket.<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|27}} Women of all levels of society wore stays or jumps, from ladies of the court to street vendors.

Corsets were originally quilted waistcoats, which French women wore as an alternative to stiff stays.<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|29}} They were only quilted linen, laced in the front, and unboned. That garment was meant to be worn on informal occasions, while stays were worn for court dress. In the 1790s, stays began to fall out of fashion. That coincided with the [[French Revolution]] and the adoption of [[Neoclassicism|neoclassical]] styles of dress. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some men were known to wear corsets, particularly the widely mocked [[Dandy|dandies]].<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|36}}[[File:A man in his underwear is having his waist pulled in by two Wellcome V0040671.jpg|alt=A colored etching of two servants tightly pulling the laces of a man's corset.|thumb|"Lacing a Dandy," a satirical cartoon of a man being laced into a corset, 1819]]