Why you should starch your petticoats (and how!)

Hello everyone and welcome to a new video! I needed the extra motivation to get on and do this crucial step in any historical costume: starching petticoats! You might have heard about starching in period dramas or historical books, often associated with 'laundry day' in busy households, where a whole day was set aside to the linens' washing, which included house linens like towels, sheets, etc, but also personal linens, another word for undergarments like chemises, shirts, shifts, and petticoats. Certain items, after washing, could also be starched, a process that used naturally occurring starches to coat fabrics and give them additional stiffness. For petticoats in particular, this was extremely useful to help fabrics gain structure and support outer skirts, and can be the key to help you achieve that historical silhouette. I used modern ready-made potato starch from a supermarket, but you can also easily make your own at home if you often use a lot of starch-heavy foods, like potatoes. The Workwoman's Guide from the 1830s shares the recipe: 'Peel and grate a quantity of potatoes, put the pulp into a coarse cloth, between two boards, and press it into a dry cake ; the juice thus pressed out of the potatoe, must be mixed with an equal quantity of water, and in an hour’s time it will deposit a fine sediment, which may be used as starch' (p.226). It also recommends a slightly different method from what I used, instead with several dipings if you've got more patience than I d