Stays

Also: a pair of bodies

Stays are the stiffened bodice of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, heavily boned and laced, the forerunner of the corset.

Stays gave the fashionable eighteenth-century torso its smooth, conical shape and upright posture. They were densely boned with baleen and laced at the front or back, and worn over a chemise. The decorated stomacher of an open gown was often pinned to them.