Corsage

“ Corset, 1910 told in all the dress news of the day that "fashion says no hips." Corset makers then tried to obliterate every normal curve of the body and make women's forms as nearly as possible like the little wooden effigies of Noah of our childhood memory, and the fash­ionable corset was made as shown in illustration 8. In all these changes of the form of women's bodies there has been no reason, no common sense. ”

“ It will be seen that the shoulder, upper part of the arm, and figure are those of a well-formed female, who wears an unmistakable corset, tightly laced, and stiffened by two busks in front, from one of which the lace, with a tag at the end, depends. The head, wings, tail, feet, and claws are all those of a demon or fiend. ”

“ The well-formed youths and graceful [10] belles of the tribe were not slow in discovering that, when arrayed in all the panoply of forest finery, a belt well drawn in, as shown in the annexed illustration, served to display the figure to much greater advantage than one carelessly or loosely adjusted. Here, then, we find the first indication of the use of the corset as an article of becoming attire. At the very first dawn of civilisation there are distinct evidences of the use of contrivances for the reduction and formation of the female figure. ”

“ Numbers of corsets sixteen inches at the waist, and even less, are made in each of these cities every day. In the large provincial towns, both at home and abroad, corset-makers follow out the rules laid down by fashion. We are disposed to think, therefore, dealing with the evidence before us, that a lady of medium stature and average breadth of shoulder would be subscribing to the laws of fashionable taste if the circumference of her waist was not more than from seventeen to nineteen inches, measuring outside the dress. ”

“ An eminent physician whose scientific experiments with, and tests of, corsets have made him an acknowledged authority on the subject, states that, in spite of the claims of corset makers regarding the physiological correctness of their products, he finds by actual tests that the majority of corsets have now, as they have had for ages, the greatest pressure in a lateral direction around the waist or middle zone of the body. ”

“ The annexed illustrations are carefully sketched from a very excellent [201] specimen of this form of corset or bodice, kindly lent us for the purpose by Messrs. Simmons, the well-known costumiers of Tavistock-street, Covent Garden, by whom it has been preserved as a great curiosity. The materials used in its construction are very strong, whilst every part the least liable to be put out of form is literally plated with whalebone, making its weight considerable. The lace-holes are worked with blue silk, and are very numerous and close together. ”

“ The top of the corset cover can be gathered to fit the figure, or tiny hand or machine tucks of 1⁄8 inch in width may be run about three inches deep each side of the front laps, five or six tiny ones being made on each side, according to the amount of fullness to be taken in. The top can be finished with a Hamburg beading for ribbon, sewed on with a French seam; and then lace may be overhanded on the edge of it. The finish of the sleeves should correspond to the neck finish.
EXERCISES AND PROBLEMS
Calculate how much beading and lace or lace alone will be necessary to trim a corset cover. ”

“ We have seen that the amount of contraction at the waist bears no constant proportion to the amount of pressure exerted by a corset; we shall see that it bears no constant proportion to the diminution of vital capacity excepting a very general one. The shape of the corset and the strength of its bones are other factors we must know, and the habit of the individual, the resisting or yielding nature of the abdominal walls, and the readiness with which organs are displaced, bear largely on the problem. ”

“ Corset-makers should see that the circle of metal beyond the orifice through which the lace passes is sufficiently wide to close down perfectly [213] on the fabric, and retain a firm hold of it; if they do not do so, the old worked eyelet-hole is preferable to the stud, notwithstanding the neat appearance of the stud and the apparent advantage it has over the old plan. ”

“ This corset is decidedly the best form on the front-fastening plan we have seen. Its mode of construction is excellent; it is so cut as to admit of its adapting itself to every undulation of the figure with extraordinary facility. We have suggested to the firm the advisability of furnishing to the public corsets combining their excellent method of cutting, great strength of material, and admirable finish, with the single steel busk and hind-lacing arrangement of the ordinary stay. ”

“ In short, it is now generally admitted, and I, for one, freely allow, that moderate compression of the waist by well-made corsets is far from being injurious. It is really absurdly illogical for the opponents of the corset to bring forward quotations from medical writers of the last century, for the animadversions of Soemmering are still quoted. Let us, however, merely look at facts as they at present stand; statistics prove that there are several thousand more women than men in the United Kingdom. ”

“ The most faithful and punctilious archæologists confess that the origin of the corset must be written down to the credit or discredit of man, for they find the birth of its existence may be dated in the far antiquity, when the savage made his hunting belt of leather stiffened with bone or hard stick held with a thong of hide, and as decorative as useful, since it was adorned with shells and quills and served to hold the knife or quiver. ”

“ This invention consists in a novel construction of a corset designed to afford great convenience to the wearer of the corset and permit ample physical exercise essential to promote the health of the person and also produce dress-improvement of the person. ”

“ The physician wishes his patients to wear a physiologically correct corset when he finds one which he can prescribe with the assurance that it will perform its func­tion properly, and the corsetière in filling this requirement is often met with the patient's objection to changing the fit of the dress to suit the change of form. ”

“ The corslet of a warrior has broad shoulder pieces, and is decorated with three stars, like "the decorated starry corslet" of Achilles. [29] These stars appear on an Assyrian corslet in Layard's Monuments. There is a belt and a mailed kirtle or mailed flaps; below appears the tight cypassis, not the flowing chiton.
Next, in a Corinthian black figure vase (Atlas, fig. 45) the charioteer wears the plain corslet of two plates with projecting rim (no zoster and mitrê) ; the dress is a tight jerkin. The women wear large mantles over what appear to be long tight-fitting chitons. ”

“ The advisability of training instead of forcing the figure into slenderness is now becoming almost universally admitted by those who have paid any attention to the subject; yet it appears from the following letters, which appeared in the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine of January and February, 1868, that the corset, even when employed at a comparatively late period of life, is capable of reducing the size of the waist in an extraordinary manner, without causing the serious consequences which it has so long been the custom to associate with the practice of tight-lacing. ”

“ She is asleep, relieved from the weight of her armour, with nothing to conceal any part of her exquisite beauty, but one of the ribbons of her corselet, which the air has most happily directed to shelter her modesty; but which one is almost afraid will wave from her waist. ”

“ No one, we apprehend, would be likely to deny that, to enable the fairer portion of the civilised human race to follow the time-honoured custom of presenting to the eye the waist in its most slender proportions, the Corset in some form must be had recourse to. Our information will show how ancient and almost universal its use has been, and there is no reason to anticipate that its aid will ever be dispensed with so long as an elegant and attractive figure is an object worth achieving. ”

“ For my own part I have always paid particular attention to the figures of the young ladies intrusted to my care, and being fully convinced that if the general health is properly attended to, corsets are far from being the dreadfully hurtful things some people imagine. I have never hesitated to employ this most important and elegant article of dress, except in one case where the pupil was of a consumptive tendency, and I was specially requested not to allow her to dress at all tightly. ”

“ He was employed in preparing these ligneous fibres for the manufacture of a primitive kind of cordage, in large use among the fishermen, and which possessed a strength and flexibility that could scarce have been expected from materials of such venerable age and rigidity as the roots and trunks of ancient trees, that had been locked up in the peat-mosses of the district for mayhap a thousand years. Like the ordinary cordage of the rope-maker, it consisted of three strands, and was employed for haulsers, the cork-bauks of herring-nets, and the lacing of sails. ”

“ In its preparation we have combined the knowledge, suggestions, observations and experience of men and women ripe in the arts of Corset Making, Corset Fitting, Adjustment and Salesmanship. Our Designer has devoted many years to corset making and corset designing. He is assisted by an able corps of men and women in close touch with the needs of the day, of wide experience and rare culture in the art of corsetry. Our Chief Cutter, Department Heads and Fore-ladies in the Factory have worked years to perfect themselves and are experts in their lines. ”

“ These outlines are made at the time of fitting, before any exercise or training by the wearing of the correct cor­set has improved the development of the body. The variety of conditions, the too thin and the over-fat, and the range of ages, from thirteen to fifty-six, give a fair idea of the possibilities of corseting for physiological results when the types of corsets used are fundamentally correct. ”

“ This corset is strapped upon the body, and attached to it is a rod passing down the right side from beneath the arm, almost to the right knee. Below the arm is a projecting piece so made as to fit into a socket, and almost in the shape of a crutch; and the rod passing down the side of the performer is so constructed that when a person has this apparatus strapped securely upon him or her, and the projecting piece under the arm is fitted into the socket of the pole, the body can be raised, and the toes in rising will describe an arc of about 90 deg., assuming the position shown in the figure. ”

“ The requirements of all would be then met, for although numbers of ladies prefer the front-fastening corset, it will be observed that a great number of those who have written on the subject, and make the formation and maintenance of the figure a study, positively declare from experience that the waist never looks so small or neatly proportioned as when evenly and well laced in the hind-lacing and close-fronted form of corset. ”

“ The proportions of our Standard Corsets are correct for the individual type of figure for which each one is built, and as every woman is anxious to approach as nearly as she may to the ideal figure, it is well to order the Standard Corset whenever it is possible. We can make a corset to fit any figure perfectly, whether it is regular or irregular, if the customer is willing to pay for the extra work and expense necessary in making a Special or Custom Corset. ”

“ If a mass of iron be dropped to the ground from the roof of a building at the same time as a cork of similar size, the iron and the cork would, but for the retarding effect of the air, fall to the ground together, but the iron would strike the ground with much greater force than the cork. ”

“ Our space will not admit of our more than glancing en passant at the various inventions which have from time to time been brought to the notice of the public. By some inventors the use of elastic webbing or woven indiarubber cloth was taken advantage of, and great stress was laid on the resilient qualities of the corsets to which it was applied. But it must never be lost sight of that all materials of an elastic nature, when fitted tightly to the figure, not only have the power of expanding on the application of force, but are unceasingly exercising their own extensive powers of contraction. ”

“ The perfect corset is one which possesses just that degree of rigidity which will prevent it from wrinkling, but will at the same time allow freedom in the bending and twisting of the body. Corsets boned with whalebone, horn or steel are necessarily stiff, rigid and uncomfortable. After a few days' wear the bones or steels become bent and set in position, or, as more frequently happens, they break and cause injury or discomfort to the wearer. ”

“ Little alteration appears to have taken place in the general style of costume for some very considerable period of time, and the patrician ladies concealed beneath their flowing draperies a kind of corset, which they tightened very considerably, for a slight and tapering waist was looked upon as a great beauty in women, and great attention was paid to the formation of the figure, in spite of all that has been written about the purely natural and statuesque forms of the Roman matrons. ”

“ Different samples of the same material show such wide variations in strength that nothing but an actual test will determine. In general, however, it may be said that China-grass cordage is four times as strong as hemp cordage, and silk cordage is ten times as strong as hemp—for the same size cords. ”