I'm doing a lot of reading about Eleanor of Toledo's burial clothing right now, and it seems that current thought states that her bodice wasn't really stiffened. It was padded, presumably for warmth. It seems to be what we'd call a waistcoat in English terms, worn under another garment for warmth, not for shaping.
Yup. But even padding would have stiffened it. It's difficult to tell, as it is very decayed, but the other theory is that it had at least some cardboard (linen stiffened with glue as pointed out by Operafantomnet), Spanish style. Eleanora was Spanish, not Florentine, so there is that theory there. :-)
The truth is, we shall never know, but my money is that it needed to be shaped.
But I think we underestimate the shaping ability of multiple layers and padding. In other periods I've done, I found that people didn't wear the proper about of layers, and that's why they looked like they needed corsets. But with the proper amount of layers, they didn't need as much stiffening as you would have thought.
Even just the fabric looked stiff and thick when I saw it. Like the really heavy upholstery velvets. I think it would have provided decent support and shaping even without extra stiffining, especially as from the size and shape of the pieces she was not very curvy.
I'm doing a lot of reading about Eleanor of Toledo's burial clothing right now, and it seems that current thought states that her bodice wasn't really stiffened. It was padded, presumably for warmth. It seems to be what we'd call a waistcoat in English terms, worn under another garment for warmth, not for shaping.
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The truth is, we shall never know, but my money is that it needed to be shaped.
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But I think we underestimate the shaping ability of multiple layers and padding. In other periods I've done, I found that people didn't wear the proper about of layers, and that's why they looked like they needed corsets. But with the proper amount of layers, they didn't need as much stiffening as you would have thought.
Like you said we'll never know for sure.
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