---
title: "Stays"
description: "Stays are the stiffened bodice of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, heavily boned and laced, the forerunner of the corset."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/stays
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Stays

*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](https://teazle.art/glossary/chemise.md). The decorated [stomacher](https://teazle.art/glossary/stomacher.md) of an open gown was often pinned to them.


## Sources

1. [Stays (AAT 300000981)](http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300000981). Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus
2. [Stays (Q2997827)](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2997827). Wikidata

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/stays