(1) She looked over the maid's shoulder and spotted a stomacher and a high-waisted gown on his bed.(2) She wore a dress of silver tissue and a stomacher covering the whole centre part of her bodice, set with a number of very large diamonds, worth quite extravagant sums according to the Duchess of Northumberland.(3) Pinning the white stomacher into the dress, I turned before the mirror, admiring myself.(4) Fashioned in a sack-back style, it has a buttoned stomacher that is typical of the 1770s.(5) Yet on ballads, many decollete ladies, described as merchant's daughters, milkmaids, cook maids and shepherdesses, appear in the guise of royal queens and mistresses, dressed in expensive slays, gowns and stomachers .
