Corset

“ 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 most remarkable as well as the most common shape, according to my experience, is that of a lady's corset, such as may often be seen displayed in fashionable milliners' windows. Even to the slender waist, the interior filled with a mass of lace-work, the rib-like streaks, and the general contour, suggestive of the Hogarthian line of beauty, the likeness is sustained. ”

“ Your correspondent says that ordinary corsets, if drawn in well at the waist, hurt a woman cruelly all the way up. I can only say that if she finds such to be the case the remedy is in her own hands. If ladies would only take the trouble to have their stays made to measure for them, and have plenty of room allowed round the chest, not only would the waist look smaller, but no discomfort would be felt such as H. W. describes. Young girls should always be accurately fitted, but it is, I have found, a mistake to have their corsets too flimsy or elastic. ”

“ What Style of Corset is the Least Injurious?—From the nature of the structure of the chest and abdomen and the functions of respiration, circulation, digestion, and the pelvic organs, the wearing of any style of corset must be more or less detrimental to the health and vigor of woman, and a perfectly developed woman, in perfect health, does not need a corset if she lives under normal conditions of dress and life ”

“ 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. ”

“ I would therefore recommend the early use of a corset that fits the figure nicely and no more. Now, simply wearing stays that only fit, will, when a girl is growing, in a great measure prevent the waist from becoming clumsy. If, however, on her reaching the age of fourteen or fifteen, her waist be still considered too large, a smaller corset may be worn with advantage, which should be gradually tightened till the requisite slimness is achieved. ”

“ The terrible corset you have on, which compresses the center of the body, making you look a great deal fatter than you really are, must be taken off, and you must have a corset which any dress maker can fit to you—a corset for the lower part of the abdomen, which will raise this great mass and support it. ”

“ If the corset is properly made, a young lady may be allowed to lean back in her chair without danger of acquiring lounging habits or [162] injuring her figure. It is to this over-tiring of the muscles that all spinal curvature is attributable, and not to the stays, which, if properly employed, would act as a sure preventative. Again, let me ask any one of the opposite sex who, at any rate at the present day, do not wear stays, whether they have never experienced 'palpitation or flushings,' headaches, and red noses? ”

“ Never has the designer of fashionable corsets taken into con­sideration the physiological fact that constriction of the flesh of the body around one portion will result in an increase at the points where pressure ceases; hence the bulging shoulder flesh and the protruding abdomen of the waist constricting corset, and the widening thigh muscles of the flat hip corset of the present mode. ”

“ The kind of corsets women wear is as essential to health as the kind of food they eat, and should no more be dictated by fashion than should their bread and butter. The history of the varying shapes and proportions of corsets is found in the history of the costumes fashionable at the different periods de­scribed-the corset designed for the fashion, not the fashion for the corset. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The physiologically correct corset gives a truly beautiful fig­ure, over which gowns may be made in the prevailing modes, but the corset which changes its design according to the fashion, with­out regard to the scientific principles of physiology, is sure to fail of its purpose as an example of hygienic corseting. Physicians recognize what is right, a few corset makers know how to pro­duce what is right, and such women as have been correctly cor­seted realize the advantages of the right corset. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many also prefer shoulder-straps for the stays of growing girls, which keep the chest expanded, and prevent their leaning too much on the busk. If these are not too tight they are very advantageous to the figure, and the upper part of the corset should just fit, but not be tight. A corset made on these principles will cause no injury to health, unless the girl is naturally of a consumptive constitution, in which case no one would think of lacing at all tightly. ”

“ Those who advocate the use of the corset as being indispensable to the female toilet have much reason on their side when they insist that these temporary freaks of fancy for loose and careless attire only call for infinitely more rigid and severe constriction after they (as they invariably have done) pass away, than if the regular training of the figure had been systematically carried out by the aid of corsets of ordinary power. In a period certainly not much over thirty years, the old-established standard of elegance, "the span," was again established for waist measurement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I believe the great fault to be that when the corset is laced on it is very generally open an inch or so from top to bottom. The consequence of this is, that when the wearer [167] is sitting down, and the pressure on the waist the greatest, the tendency is to pull the less tightly drawn lace at the top of the corset tighter; on changing the posture this does not right itself, and consequently an unnecessary and injurious compression round the chest is experienced. ”

“ For they have not gone to the root of the matter, and have not realised that In the modern dress of woman the corset is an essential factor. From the point of view of dress, the human body consists of three portions. There is an upper part with bony walls—the chest; a lower part with bony walls—the pelvis; and a middle part with soft anterior and lateral walls between the two. Consider the dress of a labouring man! He wears a coat and waist­coat which he removes when at work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many young women to-day, yielding to the spell of fashion, place the corset next to their flesh, while a still greater number have merely the thinnest possible undershirt between the flesh and the corset, after which they tightly draw the dress waist until it meets. This seems incredible, but it is vouched for by several ladies of my acquaintance, among whom are physicians whose large practice among their sisters gives them peculiar facilities for knowing the absolute facts. ”

“ Your fair readers may rest assured that what is said against stays at the present day is merely the lingering echo of prejudice, and is quite inapplicable now-a-days to the light and elegant production of the scientific corsetière. As a medical man (and not one of the old school) I feel perfectly justified in saying that ladies who are content with a moderate application of the corset may secure that most elegant female charm, a slender waist", without fear of injury to health. ”

“ The corset prevents growth, development, and the participation in those exercises which make for physical vigor and good health. To the well-developed girl corsets are as much of a superfluity as crutches would be, and nothing but the prevailing style of dress causes girls to put them on. ”

“ Good corsets assist the physician in the effort to restore normal conditions, while the woman who never wears any but a good corset will escape many of the so-called inevitable ills, prolong her enjoyment of, and increase her usefulness in, life.
We are through for the present with the corset made with the avowed purpose of diminishing the waist to the smallest pos­sible size, and also with that which was supposed to entirely obliterate the roundness of the abdomen, exaggerate the size of the hips and increase the curve of the spine. ”

“ The Influence of the Corset on the Female Body.—As a result of the four hundred years in which the corset has molded the plastic form of woman, she has become physically so degenerated that it is necessary to have recourse to the artifices of the modiste in order to have even the appearance of a good figure, and the support afforded by the corset to maintain the erect position. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It seems to me that nearly all those who suffer from tight-lacing do so from an injudicious use of the corset, and in such cases the unfortunate corset generally gets all the blame, and not the wearer who makes an improper use of it. I can easily understand that a girl who is full grown, or nearly so, and who has been unaccustomed to wear tight stays, should find it difficult and painful to lace in her waist to a fashionable size ”

“ Especially do women of the older generation object to the enlargement of the waist. Many a physician in times past, finding both the corset makers and the corset wearers obdurate in their determination to follow the edicts of fashion instead of the laws of health, has thrown up his hands and sur­rendered to defeat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is reserved to our own time to demonstrate that corsets and tight lacing do not necessarily go hand in hand. Distortion and feebleness are not beauty. A proper proportion should exist between the size of the waist and the breadth of the shoulders and hips, and if the waist is diminished below this proportion, it suggests disproportion and invalidism rather than grace and beauty.
8. 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. ”

“ Amongst the works of art discovered there is a bas-relief representing a female figure, which, in addition to a profusion of massive ornaments, wears a complicated and elaborate waist-bandage, which, by a system of circular and transverse folding and looping, confines the waist from just below the ribs to the hips as firmly and compactly as the most unyielding corset of the present day. ”

“ The corset must go. No woman could have experienced the pain and discomfort I have been subjected to this day without feeling entitled to the vote. Yet I dare say there are women who would gladly be poured into a new corset every day of their lives. They can have mine for the asking. Life at its best presents a narrow enough outlook without resorting to cunningly wrought devices such as corsets in order further to confine one's point of view or abdomen, which amounts to the same thing. ”