The elegance of dress mainly dependent on the Corset--Fashion
and dress of 1865--The short-waisted dresses and trains of
1867--Tight Corsets needed for short waists--Letter on the
figure--Description of a peculiar form of Corset worn by some
ladies of fashion in France--Proportions of the figure and size
of the waist considered--The point at which the waist should
be formed--Remarks of the older writers on stays--Corsets and
high-heeled shoes denounced--Alarming diseases said to be
produced by wearing high-heeled shoes--Mortality amongst the
female sex not on the increase--Extraordinary statistics of the
Corset trade--The Corset of the present day contrasted with that
of the olden time.
We could very easily add letters enough to occupy the remaining
portion of this work, all incontestably proving that slender waists
_are_, notwithstanding that which some few writers have urged to the
contrary, held in high esteem by the great majority of the sterner sex.
Without the aid of the corset, it has been very fairly argued, no
dress of the present day could be worn, unless its fair possessor was
willing to submit to the withering contempt of merciless society. The
annexed illustration represents a lady dressed in the fashion of the
close of 1865, and there are few who would be unwilling to admit its
elegance and good taste. One glance at the contour of the figure is
sufficient to show the full influence of the modern form of corset on
the adjustment of this style of costume, and it would be a waste of
both time and space to represent the figure in its uncultivated form
similarly arrayed. In 1867, we find a strong tendency towards the
short waists, low dresses, and long trailing trains of old times, and
we are forcibly reminded, when contemplating the passing caprice, of
the lines from a parody on the "Banks of Banna"--
"Shepherds, I have lost my waist.
Have you seen my body?"
Still the waist is by no means suffered to remain _perdu_, but, as in
1827, has to be laced with very considerable tightness to compensate
the eye for its loss of taperness and length. The annexed illustration
represents a lady of fashion of 1867, and it would be a perfect work
of supererogation to ask our readers how a lady so dressed would
look "unlaced and unconfined." The ladies themselves are by far
the best judges of the matter, and the following letter from the
_Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine_ will show that the corset has to
play an important part in the now-existing style of dress. Thus writes
a lady who signs herself Edina:--
"Allow me to occupy a small portion of your valuable space with the
subject of stays. I quite agree with A Young Baronet that all those
ladies who possess that most elegant attraction, a slender waist,
should not hide it so completely by shawls whenever they promenade.
Excuse my offering a few remarks to facilitate that desirable object,
a handsome figure. Ladies, when dressing for the afternoon walk or
ride, or the evening display, when putting on their stays at first,
should not lace them quite tight; in about a quarter of an hour they
might again tighten them, and in the course of half-an-hour or so lace
them to the requisite tightness. They may fancy in this way there is
no sudden compression of the waist, and the figure gets more easily
accustomed to tight-lacing. Occasionally, in France, ladies who are
very particular about their figures have their corsets made in three
pieces, laced down the sides as well as behind, and cut away over the
hips; the holes for the laces are very numerous and close together.
This form of corset offers great facilities for the most perfect
adjustment to the figure, as well as power of tight-lacing when
required, and perfect ease in walking or dancing. I may add that, in
order to insure a good fit and to keep it properly in its place, the
busk in front, and the whalebones behind, are made somewhat longer
than the present fashion. Perhaps the lady in your September number,
who signs herself An Inveterate Tight-Lacer, might find a trial of
a corset made in this form a great boon as well as a comfort in
tight-lacing."
Practical hints such as these will not fail to be of interest to
the reader. Numerous inquiries, as will be seen on reference to the
foregoing correspondence, have been made as to what circumference the
waist should be to meet the requirements of elegance.
[Illustration: THE FASHION OF 1867]
It must be borne in mind, when dealing with this question, that height
and breadth of shoulder have much to do with proportionate slenderness
of waist. A lady who is tall and wide-shouldered would appear very
neatly shaped with a waist laced to twenty or twenty-one inches,
whilst with a slight, narrow form of figure that size would carry
the appearance of much clumsiness with it. Madame La Sante says--"A
waist may vary in circumference from seventeen to twenty-three
inches, according to the general proportions of the figure, and yet
appear in all cases slender and elegant." We have abundant evidence
before us, however, that seventeen inches is by no means the lowest
standard of waist-measure to be met with in the fashionable circles
of either London, New York, Paris, or Vienna. 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.
Fashion has indulged in some strange freaks regarding the length and
position of the waist, as a reference to many of the illustrations
will show, but its true position can be laid down so clearly that no
doubt need remain on the matter. A line drawn midway between the hip
and the lowest rib gives the exact point from which the tapering
form of the waist should spring, and by keeping this rule in view
it appears the statement made by so many ladies (that provided
ample space is allowed for the chest the waist may be laced to an
extreme of smallness without injury) has much truth to support it.
The contributors to works of popular instruction even in our own day
are very lavish in their denunciations of the practice of wearing
corsets, and, following in the track of the ancient writers on the
same subject, muster such a deadly and tremendously formidable array
of ailments, failings, and diseases as inseparably associated with
the wearing of that particular article of attire, that the very
persons for whom these terrors are invoked, seeing from their own
daily experience how overdrawn they are and how little knowledge
their authors show about the subject, laugh the whole matter to scorn
and follow the fashion. We have now before us a very talented and
well-conducted journal, in which there are some sweeping blows at
the use of both corsets and high-heeled boots or shoes, and, as an
instance of the frightfully severe way in which the ladies of the time
(1842) laced themselves, the writer assures us that he had actually
seen a young lady's waist-belt which measured exactly "_twenty-two_
inches," "showing that the _chest_ to which it was applied had been
reduced to a diameter (allowing for clothes) of little more than seven
inches." The chest is thus shown as being about one inch less than the
waist. Now, in 1842 it must have been a very eccentric lady indeed
who formed her waist round her _chest_, and as to the twenty-two-inch
waistband, we cannot help thinking that the majority of our readers
would seek one of considerably smaller size as an indication of
the practice of tight-lacing in the owner. And now on the score of
high-heeled boots and slippers, we are, like the immortal boy in
_Pickwick_, "going to make your flesh creep." In writing of these
terrible engines of destruction our mentor says--"From the uneasiness
and constraint experienced in the feet sympathetic affections of a
dangerous kind often assail the stomach and chest, as hæmorrhage,
apoplexy, and consumption. Low-heeled shoes, with sufficient room for
the toes, would completely prevent all such consequences."
How the shareholders of life assurance companies must quake in their
shoes as the smart and becoming footgear of the period meets their
distracted vision at every turn! and what between the fatal high heels
and waists of deadly taperness, it is a wonder that female existence
can continue, and that all the policies do not fall due in less than
a week, all the undertakers sink into hopeless idiocy in a day from
an overwhelming press of business, and all the gentlemen engage in
sanguinary encounter for the possession of the "_last woman_," who has
survived the common fate by reason of her barefooted habits and of her
early abandonment of stays.
We do not find, as a matter of fact, that the Registrar-General has
his duties materially increased, or that the bills of female mortality
are by any means alarming, although on a moderate calculation there
are considerably over twelve million corsets in the United Kingdom
alone, laced with as many laces round as many waists every day in the
week, with, in many instances, a little extra tension for Sundays.
We learn from the columns of _Once a Week_ that the total value of
stays made for British consumption annually, cannot be less than
£1,000,000 sterling, to produce which about 36,000,000 yards of
material are required. The stay trade of London employs more than
10,000 in town and country, whilst the provincial firms employ about
25,000 more; of these, about 8,000 reside in London, and there is
about one male to every twenty-five women. Returns show that we
receive every year from France and Germany about 2,000,000 corsets.
One corset-manufacturer in the neighbourhood of Stuttgard has, we are
informed, over 1,300 persons in constant employment, and turns out
annually about 300,000 finished corsets. Messrs. Thomson and Co.,
the manufacturers of the glove-fitting corset, turn out incredible
numbers from their immense manufactories in England, America, and
on the continent. It will be readily conceived that the colonial
demand and consumption is proportionately great. The quantity of steel
annually made use of for the manufacture of stay-busks and crinolines
is perfectly enormous. Of the importance of the whale fishery, and the
great value of whalebone, it will be needless to speak here, further
than to inform our readers that more than half the whalebone which
finds its way into the market is consumed by the corset-makers. Silk,
cotton, and wool, in very large quantities, are either spun up into
laces or used in the sewing or manufacture of the corset itself. No
inconsiderable quantity of timber is made use of for working up into
busks. Oxhorn, ebonite, gutta-percha, and hardened brass are all
occasionally used for the same purpose, whilst the brass eyelet-holes,
of which we shall have to say more by-and-by, are turned out in such
vast and incalculable quantities, that any attempt at computing their
number would be useless. It will be seen by these statistics and
remarks that, unlike certain other articles of raiment which have
reigned in popular esteem for a time, and then passed away, the corset
has not only become an established institution throughout the whole
civilised world, but is of immense commercial importance, and in
rapidly-increasing demand and esteem.
We shall now have to remark on some of the most noteworthy forms of
the corset worn at the present day, contrasting them with those of
the olden time. The steel corset-_covers_ we have already figured and
described. On these contrivances being found heavy and too unbending
in their construction, a form of corset was, as we have before said,
contrived, which needed no cover to preserve its perfect smoothness of
surface and rigidity of form; the front was therefore enriched with
gold and silver tissue, and ornamented with embroidery, performing
the part of both corset and stomacher, whilst the back was made of a
heavier material, because the dress of the period often concealed it.
[Illustration: CORSET, FORMING BOTH CORSET AND STOMACHER
(FRONT).]
[Illustration: CORSET, FORMING BOTH CORSET AND STOMACHER
(BACK).]
The annexed illustrations are carefully sketched from a very
excellent 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.
[Illustration]