The Making of a Medieval Bra: Drafting a Supportive Shift

Hello lovelies. So for quite a while now, I've really wanted to make a historically adequate medieval outfit. But a problem I kept running into was the undergarments. I personally don't feel completely comfortable without having some sort of supportive garment. And while some people believe corsetry started in the Middle Ages, which is completely false, on the other side of things, a lot of people believe everybody was just freewheeling, right? You just had your linen smock, and that was it, that was your only undergarment. But some fairly recent archaeological finds, which I will link below, have shown that actually there were sort of proto-bras in use. Underwear is kind of hard to find archaeologically, because it's a piece of clothing that's not really made out of expensive material to be shown to others, so you wear it until it wears out, right? You don't really preserve it. But, in Austria they have found some of those examples, and it seems to be some sort of like, slightly compressing, supporting shifts that you'd wear under your clothes. So I've seen a couple other YouTubers make their version of this, which I'll also link. And I decided to give it a go! So, join me on this journey to find a supportive shift that I can wear as the base, along with my regular shift, for medieval garments. A couple things to note, I'm still getting used to our new camera, and I lost some footage, but I believe I've pieced together enough for you to follow the journey, so that you can see how I did it, and be able to do it for yourself. First things first. So, the original bodice mock-up that I made for the fitted shift, that footage is gone. I'm still getting used to this camera. And yeah, that footage is gone. But, I decided I quite like the form factor, so I want to make another version of this shift as a pinafore, so I need to make another block, because I am going to be wearing that with a bra, whereas the original one is to give me support without a bra. So I'm making a second block to show you the basic process, but just know it's going to be a little bit different if you're doing it braless, because it's going to be a lot more, like, tension to give you the support you need. So I'm just actually going to mark off where my waist is. I'm going to grab a few pins, and hope I don't stab myself. So, basically, I'm just gathering in from the center. So, basically, if you have a smaller waist than chest, you're going to end up gathering in a lot more down here. And if you want an even more accurate, you can make this with straps. Pinning things in your body is always a little bit stressful. Okay. Coming up to the underbust. Now, this is a lot more important when you're doing an actual supported shift. You really need to, like, bring this in. And you'll see I ended up actually taking in a little bit from the sides as well for my shift, which I kind of regret. I feel like I should have just taken more out of the center front, because I originally left the center front pretty intact and took out a little bit from here, which kind of makes an odd jarge, to be honest. So I kind of got this peak that is a little more pronounced at the bottom and a little bit at the top. And I've marked off my side area where the lacing will be. So again, for your actual fitted shift, you're going to be playing with tightness a lot more. It has to be very fitted to give you adequate support. This is just to make a nice body fit, but you'll see in the actual shift, it kind of holds up and compresses the chest. So that footage disappeared, but this is the basic idea of it. So I just made a tube. As I said, you can make it with straps if you want, but it's just kind of about seeing if you start with just a rectangle, how much you need to take out of the center to give it that shaping to hold up your chest. So once I got my basic template, I just sort of cut out that excess fabric that we pulled to the front. So as I said, in my original white linen version of this, I kept the top of the center front intact, which I did end up taking in later, and I sort of cut out a little bit on the sides. So that's why if you look at this sort of body block I'm laying out, it does have the side top cut as well, which was a choice. I don't recommend that choice, but ultimately my result's not too bad, so I can't complain too much. So I got this laid out on some nice, just plain white linen. White linen was the preferred fabric for undergarments at that time. Since this project is medieval in nature, I tried to do a decent amount of hand sewing on this project, and of course I had a little companion while I did. Now the center bust is going to take a lot of pressure, so I first secured this with backstitches, because that's going to be sort of your toughest hand stitch. But then it needed a little bit of reinforcement and finishing. So to finish the inner seams, I tucked in those two raw edges and pinned them together. It's sort of like a French seam on the inside of your clothing, so it's only the sort of smooth edges, which is just nice on the skin, but it also just adds an extra layer of protection for your initial stitches, so it helps that extra pressure. Sewing by candlelight... well, I wouldn't recommend sewing solely by candlelight, but sewing is a wonderful cold-weather activity, I think. It's nice to just sit with some twinkle lights and candles and just stitch away to your heart's content in a cold evening. Sometimes, though, you end up sewing 52 eyelets in a moving vehicle. I don't recommend it, but there we are. We had to take a bit of an emergency road trip to assist a friend, and I was in the middle of this project, so I brought it with me. I did not bleed on my linen, even once, so I feel like I've reached some sort of level, and I deserve accolades. I also thought this was the ideal time for me to work on making some lucid cord to lace up the sides of this. Of course, I did take some time to enjoy the views as we drove through various American cities and along major highways. Once we got home, I could start working on my skirt, so the sides of this need to be sewn up, but not all the way to the top because of that lacing gap, and basically, it's just two rectangles, very wide rectangles that will be pleated up into the bottom waist of this. So, I have to secure the center and the sides first, just to make sure that that middle bit that's hanging there can be appropriately pleated in. Now, the pleating isn't really to add volume like it is in petticoats in later eras. It's more just to give enough room for your hips and for movement as you wear it because the skirt you're wearing over it isn't going to have any sort of pleating. It's going to be a long medieval dress with gores or gadets instead to give width. Pleating of outer clothes wasn't really a thing yet at this time. The straps of this are made from twill tape, and I also used that tape along the edges of the top bodice to secure it. And then, pretty much, that's it. It's finished, and I feel kind of like Da Vinci's angel in it. Because linen stretches over time, I do worry that my side lacing is a little too tight and I might need to take it in a bit, but it's pretty supportive. It's compressed me kind of like a sports bra and prevents excess bounce. As I was finishing up the white undershift, I kept thinking about this green linen I had left over from another project and how pretty it was and how I wanted to do another project out of it and how I'm addicted to pinafore dresses, especially in the winter because they're wonderful for layering. So I decided I must create a version of this for modern wear. So I cut out my fabric from the body block you saw me make at the beginning. And then, instead of using the white cotton twill tape like I used for the white version, I decided to use some pretty kind of novelty fabric for my edging and straps. And then I decided, since this version wasn't really medieval, I could also use my sewing machine to help it go a wee bit faster. And I think that's totally fair. Besides the decorative trim, the other adjustment I made was to, instead of doing flat pleats, do sort of more like a cartridge pleat to draw the skirt in and give it a little more volume. So I used a little more skirt fabric to give a bit more drama since I didn't have to worry about volume under an overdress. And I think it's pretty cute. As you can see, I have a slightly bigger lacing gap because when I'm wearing a structured undergarment like a bra, I'm just not as compressible. And I think that's normal. But it's really cute. I enjoyed making it and I'm excited now to start working on the next part of my medieval costume now that I have proper underwear and a cute outerwear version to wear all fall long. I hope you guys had a great time and are encouraged to make your own. And as I said, I'm linking some other resources down below. Bye!