Corsets - wearing

This is going to be corset week.  My original plan was to talk about how I make corsets,  give options and reasons for other methods, and explore all the options for materials and supplies.  But then I thought I really should do a little more research to talk about such a popular subject! ... you have to be brave when researching corsets on line ... really!

There's no getting around the obvious ... corsets are sexy.  They are important for the correct wearing of historic costume BUT they are sexy, as any one quick Goggle search will let you know, as if we need to be told. This image is from McGrew Studios Custom Costumers.

I ran across an article for authors who write period romance novels (aka bodice rippers). It does an excellent job describing what wearing a corset was like for the average woman, I think. It is on Isobel Carr's website ... a good read.

The next thought that comes to everyone's mind is "tiny waist" and "tight lacing" and really not that many women laced their corsets so uncomfortably tight and those that did, mostly lived in the later half of the 19th Century.  The corset above, from 1877, was considered a tight lacing corset, but with that lacing in the front, I'm wondering if it is a maternity corset?? hmmmmm Perhaps a maternity corset for someone who tight laces?

But, there are more people than I realized who are tight lacing today.  This image is from The Lingerie Addict where there is a very long article dispelling the "myths" of tight lacing!
Notice how she is pulling the lacings from the eyelets at the waist, not top or bottom. This is the best way to pull the waist in tightly.


There are women who vie for the right to say they have the worlds tiniest waist.  The current Guinness World Book record is 15" held by ...

Cathie Jung. I believe she wears a corset 24 hours a day to maintain this size. You can read all about her at the Cathie Jung website.

But, talking about the fashion aspects, which will be my focus, even more important than making the waist smaller is the fact that a corset reshapes the body.  Even someone who has never worn a corset before will end up with a narrower looking waist from the front view, because a corset transforms the natural oval shaped waist to round, like this illustration from the Pragmatic Costumer blog shows. Women without much body fat and with toned torsos might not have their waist made any smaller with a corset, but they will go from oval to round. The silhouette of the body is changed.

Doing this corset research, I found an article about a young woman who for the last 4 or 5 years has been living her entire life as though she was living in Victorian times.  This photo show how daily corset wearing has changed her body. Read her story at the Today News site.

There is a lot of discussion of corset training on line.  Regular corset wearing will make it easier to achieve a small waist.  But, if the waist gets very small, the organs are moved into new positions. Which the women who are tight lacing swear is not a problem. Click on the links in the earlier part of this blog to read their explanations.

At the end of the 19th century, many people were beginning to be concerned about the effects on women's health.

The invention of the x-ray machine allowed people to actually see for the first time what tight corsets were doing to women's bodies, as this image from 1908 shows. Many more such images can be found at Wikimedia.

So now that I've gotten this discussion out of the way ... I can talk about the beauty of corsets and their influence on people and fashion.  

I so love the look of this scrumptious French corset from 1904. Although I doubt the owner of this corset ever wore it with the big rose like bow, it does look perfect with it.

Tomorrow an historic overview.