Tight-lacing

“ Now, madam, as a part of the present whole of modern dress, every one must admit that a slender waist is a great acquisition, and from my own experience and the experience of several young lady friends similarly addicted to guide me, I beg to pronounce the so-called evils of tight-lacing to be a mere bugbear and so much cant. Every woman has the remedy in her own hands. If she feels the practice to be an injury to her, she can but discontinue it at any time. ”

“ But vigour of lungs and stomach both fill out and also redden the cheeks, and hence promote beauty. But tight-lacing has been shown to destroy both. One reason why marriage impairs the beauty, is because it impairs the health. But not to dwell here. I take the broad ground—a ground supported by both observation and science—that no woman having an artificial waist can be handsome. Tight-lacing would make Venus herself homely—will make any woman homely, tame and uninteresting, by making her thin, spare, scrawny, and haggard in appearance. ”

“ After even this brief sketch of our internal organism we are enabled better to appreciate the injury done by tight-lacing.
To begin from the outside, tight stays hinder the action of the skin of the parts they press upon by impeding the circulation; they weaken the muscles of these parts, especially those of the back, by preventing the amount of movement necessary to their healthy development. They act very much like splints, and we all know how weak the muscles feel after these have been removed. ”

“ The evil effects of tight-lacing, or of lacing at all, and of binding the clothing around the hips, instead of suspending it from the shoulders, can never be fully realized without a thorough education in anatomy and physiology. ”

“ The most efficient method of putting an end to the practice of tight lacing will be, not merely to point out its unhealthiness, and even dangerous consequences, because these, though imminent, are uncertain,—every lady who resorts to the practice hoping that she, individually, may escape the penalty,—but to prove that the practice, so far from adding to the beauty of the figure, actually deteriorates it. ”

“ We allude to the pernicious practice of tight lacing, which, as appears from contemporary paintings, was as general on the continent as in England.
The savage American Indian changes the shape of the soft and elastic bones of the skull of his infant by compressing it between two boards; the intelligent but prejudiced Chinese suffers the head to grow as nature formed it, but confines the foot of the female to the size of an infant's; while the highly-intellectual and well-informed European lady limits the growth of her waist by the pressure of the stays. ”

“ Look at the same woman, or upon two women, alike except that the waist of the one shall be distorted and her motions cramped by corsets, and the other free, her motions natural, easy and graceful, and then tell me if a naturally full waist, rendered small artificially, is not a deformity?
But, this is but a small part of the reason why lacing renders a woman homely. Can a poor, scrawny, pale-faced, spare-featured ghastly-looking woman, possibly be handsome? ”

“ The craze for tight lacing once more made itself felt at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and not many years before the end one heard from time to time of the cruelty that was practised at high-class schools for young ladies, where the girls were made to sleep in specially tight and rigid corsets. ”

“ The practice of tight lacing is another fruitful cause of destruction of health and broken-down constitutions. Young girls should not lace at all—an easy smooth jacket to make the dress fit smoothly is all they should wear. ”

“ This defective education of the dressmakers, or rather their want of knowledge of the human form, is one of the great causes of the prevalence of the old fashion of tight lacing; it is so much easier to make a closely-fitting body suit over a tight stay than it is on the pliant and yielding natural form, in which, if one part be drawn a little too tight, or the contrary, the body of the dress is thrown out of shape. ”

“ I wish to make woman ashamed to lace tight, and this will do it. No woman who reads this will dare be seen laced tight, because she knows it to be true, both from experience and from physiology. My object in this allusion is, to break up this most pernicious fashion ”

“ 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 ”

“ I think H. W.'s suggestions regarding the waistbands only applicable to middle-aged ladies or invalids, as they do not give sufficient support to growing girls, and are likely to make the figure look too much like a sack tied round the middle instead of gradually tapering to the waist. Brisbane's letter shows how those who have never tried tight-lacing are prejudiced against it, and that merely from being shown a print in an old medical work, while Nora's letter is infinitely more valuable, as showing how even the most extreme lacing can be employed without injury to health. ”

“ In fact there is naturally but little difference between the proportionate size of the male and female waist. But by the baneful practice of tight-lacing, the waist is seldom allowed to be even twenty-five inches; women whose waists measure twenty-four and even twenty-one exclaim with horror if accused of tight-lacing, and these are the majority; but many reduce their waists to much under twenty inches, and at a certain fashionable stay-maker's I saw corsets measuring only fourteen inches, which the maker assured me she supplied to many customers. ”

“ Those persons, for the most part men, who have learnt to appreciate the evils of tight-lacing, have almost invariably been so eager to abolish those evils that they have fallen into an error of judgment, and have sought to do so by entirely abolishing the use of the corset. ”

“ I thought tight-lacing was an effete superstition clean gone forever. But again and again, last summer, I saw this wretched disease, this cacoethes pectus vinciendi, breaking out with renewed and increasing virulence; and I heard women—yes, grown-up women, old women—talking about the "Grecian bend," and the tapering line of the slender, willowy waist. Now, girls, when you have laced yourselves into a wand, do not be so infatuated as to suppose that any sensible man looks at you and thinks of willows. ”

“ Most men, it is true, harangue against the former; but if masculine sentiment were really set against tight-lacing and its results, do you think girls would long make their dressing-maids sit up waiting their return from balls, lest an unpractised hand should not unloose the lacings by those short and easy stages which are necessary to prevent the shock of nature’s too sudden rebound? ”

“ Nor do I think a girl whose constitution is sound would suffer any injury to her health from moderate lacing, but I must beg that you will allow me to declare that when stays are not worn till fourteen years of age, very tight lacing causes absolute torture for the first few months, and it was principally to deter ladies from subjecting their daughters to this pain in similar cases that mamma wrote to you. ”

“ But we have already spoken of the evil of tight-lacing, and need not recur to it again here; we appeal to the experience of every lady who may read this, whether much that we have said has not fallen under her own observation. The extreme disfigurement to which the human body is liable may be seen by a reference to certain nations and races, in whom the deformity is great ”

“ As doctors seem to think that the dangers of tight-lacing have been much exaggerated, and as I know many ladies with very slender waists enjoying quite as good health as their more strongly built sisters, I would urge upon all who wish to have good figures not to be deterred by alarmists from endeavouring gradually to attain an elegant shape. ”

“ Another evident object of the ladies in their lacing and padding, is to make themselves, not the better, but the more handsome; yet corsets destroy the very beauty which they are employed to impart; for beauty depends upon health, which tight-lacing impairs, thereby rendering them scrawny and pale, (nor can rogue supply the place of the rosy cheek of health,) besides shortening the period of youth. Air and exercise are the best means of promoting health, and of improving the beauty. ”

“ The waist was too small for a grown person, and could only have been made so by tight-lacing. The child had been taught that dresses, corsets, coats, vests, bands, or anything fastened tightly around the waist, press upon the ribs and crowd them out of place, preventing the heart, lungs, and other inside organs from working as they should, causing headache, dyspepsia, shortness of breath, and often ending in some incurable disease, so she knew that tight clothing means trouble to the wearer. ”

“ I feel confident that physicians will support me in my belief that the death-rate among American women would be less if corset and other tight lacing were abolished. I have known of instances where tight lacing for the ballroom has caused the death of enceinte women. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I believe that a large number of the cases of curvature of the spine met with in surgical practice, generally in girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen, result directly or indirectly from the weight and improper pressure of clothes, a potent agent in causing the deformity being the wearing of high-heeled boots, which throw the body forward in walking. Tight, stiff stays are responsible for a great deal of harm, and I am afraid that horrible process called tight-lacing begins but too frequently earlier than is generally suspected. ”

“ The deformity caused by tight stays is unfortunately generally effected so gradually during the years of growth that the sufferer is unconscious of any harm. Moreover, just as the Chinook infant will cry when its head-bandages are removed, so the woman whose body has been crushed out of all semblance to its natural form by Plate 2.—Female figure showing skeleton deformed by tight-lacing. the gradual application of pressure by stays, each successive pair of which is tighter than the last, will exclaim if her corsets are taken away, "I could not exist without their support. ”

“ Lacing, Tight.—This produces such serious deformity, and in many ways so interferes with the health of women, that we are constrained to write upon the subject. We find in cases which come before us that lacing, both of the feet and the waist, as practised by our women, has caused disease, and prevents our curing it. ”

“ Particular attention must be given to the cutting of the back of the neck to secure plenty of play, and to prevent that disagreeable tightness so often experienced, which completely mars the easy and graceful movement of the head. While giving absolute freedom to the figure, the well shaped body will fit like a glove. A tight habit gives a stiff, inelegant appearance to the whole figure, and produces a feeling of being "cribbed, cabined, and confined," tantamount to semi-suffocation. ”

“ A Tight-Lacer expresses herself to the following effect:—"Most of your correspondents advocate the early use of the corset as the best means to secure a slender waist. No doubt this is the best and most easy mode, but still I think there are many young ladies who have never worn tight stays who might have small waists even now if they would only give themselves the trouble. I did not commence to lace tightly until I was married, nor should I have done so then had not my husband been so particularly fond of a small waist ”

“ From a recently-published book I gather the following ideas, and as they coincide with what I am always impressing on my readers with reference to tight dresses and stays, I quote them gladly, as showing that there are other sensible women in the world, a class which I hope will every day increase:—"If you lace tightly, nothing can save you from acquiring high shoulders, abnormally large hips, varicose veins in your legs, and a red nose. ”

“ In all our corsets and adaptations we employ different kinds of fastenings according to the requirements of the case. It is sometimes asked why, in those which fasten in front, we employ a counter-lacing at the back. ”

“ The elastic hip gores assist in maintaining control and allow expansion in sitting. The combined lacing adjustment brings the control features into action both over the front and back of the body making these garments a corrective for prolapsed abdominal organs and an aid in maintaining correct poise. The back lacing adjustment with lower pull-loop affords control over the back of the body and together with the front lacing adapts the garment to the changing figure lines as correction is obtained. ”

“ The Back Lacing enables the client to regulate the tightness or looseness of her brassiere as may be required. It permits refinements of adjustment to provide for varying bust contours and degrees of under arm and shoulder flesh. ”

“ She was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace. A lace-pillow lay upon her breast; and the quick movements and changes of her hands upon it as she worked, had given them the action he had misinterpreted.
“That is curious,” she answered, with a bright smile. “For I often fancy, myself, that I play tunes while I am at work.” ”