Having acted in any number of 'costume' dramas and having been a line and movement director in a performance of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest", I can speak from experience about the problems of getting actors and - especially - actresses, I'm afraid, to walk, sit, use their hands, not use their hands, use fans in the way they were meant to be used (for an entire language of communication now lost), speak, how to pour tea correctly, use a cup and saucer, use a pen, inkwell and blotter ... just about everything, really. In the Wilde play I drilled the actors and actresses on different occasions before puttng them together. The women wore long sheets around their waists and theatrical corsets so as to get them used to the restrictions on movement while still moving fluidly. The effort nearly killed some of them - but they got it right in the end
At the French Court women wore silk slippers when in full Court Dress. They were supposed to slither with tiny, mincing steps over the polished wood or marble floors. The huge paniers were difficult to manipulate - especially when the ladies had to negotiate the very narrow staircases to their attic rooms in Versailles. I can testify to this having been once allowed to climb them.
Up to the 1950s, most women wore some form of 'foundation' undergarment - even young women, because of wearing nylons which were attached to a suspender belt. Generally speaking, fashion dictated the use of 'girdles' until Dior's 'New Look' began to disappear around 1960. My mother's dresses were stiffened not by whalebone but by strong plastics or thin metal. There was also a brief revival of stiffened petticoats (made of highly inflammable material) and even metal hoops under short-ish skirts.
The crinoline (arguably the most graceful if unwieldy fashion ever adopted by women) enjoyed an enormous vogue from c. 1850 - 1865. They were firstly made of whalebone but, towards the end of the period, dress supports made of modified watchspring metal made life lighter and easier.
