I promised
this blogpost more than a year ago, when many tagged me at a post, where in a well-known
Internet magazine, someone put up an article about how she wore a corset for a
certain time period, and what an awful experience it was.
I did write
down my thoughts at that time, but I just cannot find that file on my computer,
so I kept putting off writing about corsets.
But then, a
couple of weeks ago, I was at an lecture about how people shaped their bodies
through history, and of course, stays and corsets came up again, and once
again, I was screaming inside when I heard, how oppressive they were, how women
suffered, their bodies were distorted, tight-laced, and on and on.
Those, who
ever met with me at an event know, that this is a topic I can get passionate
about (another is when I hear that people in old ages – practically any time
before the late 20th century were dirty and smelly, however, that is a topic
for another post).
I for one,
regularly wear stays or corsets, and as one, I have pretty strong opinion about
them… and no, they are NOT the paternal society’s tool to oppress women. In my experience, a well-made, made to the
body’s measurements stays/corsets can be (or often are) better than a pair of
bad (or even a pair of average) bra.
When I ask
people “what is a corset’s main task?”, “why women wore corsets?”, the first
answer is always: “to make them look thinner”.
Well, a corset has several task/role, and making women (look) thinner is
the last one, more like a happy side effect than a main task.
So what are
those “tasks”?
1).
Shaping. Yes, that seems like the opposite of what I said above, but… Every
period has its fashionable shape (think of the modern age's Twiggy, Cindy Crawford or J.Lo). Like
a) the 18th century, rococo is an
upturned pyramid shape, no real curves, the breast is pushed up.
b) the Napoleonic/regency era is a column with
the emphasis on the column head, I mean the breast, that were pushed up as far
as possible. Those dresses had high waistline, nobody ever saw the actual waist
of women. So, when you see Mama Fetherington pulling the laces tight and the
girl crying out “I cannot breath”, that is stupid. Partly, because the way
those stays were made would not allow tight-lacing (they would tear), partly, because it would
have been utterly unnecessary.
c) the Victorian era brought the hourglass
shaped corsets most people are familiar with.
Every body,
even the thinnest ones have - if not fat, but muscle to be pushed away a bit
here and there, to give the wearer that fashionable shape. It does not have to
“size down”, for a while, when I teared my corset last year while skating, I
wore one that was a size bigger than me, still, it did all the shaping I
needed.
2)
Foundation. Giving a “massive”, stable foundation to clothes. For example, my
early Victorian gown was made of a very light printed cotton from India, much
like a viscose fabric, and still, when I had it on, it looked like it had
lining, horsehair and/or boning in it… because I had corset
underneath.
3) Holding
one’s breasts. We like to forget that the first bras were made in the 1910’s,
though women did have breasts for thousands of years. Corsets can hold them
just as well, if not better than bra’s.
4) Managing/distributing
the weight of the dress. Even though less than many people would think (we are NOt talking about tens of kilograms), these dresses,
or let’s say outfits have a considerable weight, especially compared to our
modern clothes. In one march 15th event we calculated, and my early
Victorian dress, with the appropriate underwear, and petticoats have 22 meters
of fabric, and that is the minimum: a corded petticoat a ruffled one and a
plain one. Now, the really fashionable ones, who wanted even wider skirts, wore
even more petticoats, in some cases 5 or 6 of them, which weighed even more.
Later, with the cage crinoline, it was a freeing experience to these women,
that they could get away only with two petticoats, but still the crinoline also
have some weight. So, when one wears them over stays/corsets, takes over the
load, helps distribute the weight. If I wear these dresses without
corsets/stays, by the end of the day, there is crying, and I am begging Norbert
for a back-massage. With corset/stays: no problem.
So, if
after all this, it can make someone a bit thinner… that is a happy side-effect.
Of course,
everything can be overdone. Today, we have tiny, short skirts, or extreme high
heels, so there were people, who overdid thightlacing, but that was NOT
generally done.
Women are
not stupid. They would not wear something for HUNDREDS of years, if it wasn’t
good for them on some level.
And no, women did had ribs taken out (did you ever read about Victorian hospitals? They avoided them, like they avoided the plague), and no, it did not distorted inner organs either. Oh, that everybody saw the drawings printed in period magazines? They are DRAWINGS. (Not Xrays,, CT or US pictures, but DRAWINGS).
És nem, nem vetették ki a bordájukat (olvastatok már a viktoriánus kórházakról? Olyan messzire kerülték el őket, amennyire csak lehet), és nem nem torzította el a belső szerveket sem. Ja, hogy mindenki látta a korabeli magazinokban megjelenő rajzokat? RAJZOKAT láttunk. (Nem röntgen, CT, UH felvételeket. RAJZOKAT.)
What is the
secret if we are talking about comfort and corsets/stays?
As I said
above: well made, and made to the person’s measurements should not be
uncomfortable.
I can bend,
sit, walk, lift things, dance in corsets/stays. I CAN tie my shoelaces. Yes,
there is the saying “Boots before corsets” but not because it is impossible to
tie them… But, surely they are easier to take on when you do not have corsets
on.
After a day-long
event, when we take off our corsets/stays, and we breathe a sigh of relief, we
often joke, that nobody, I just talked to about how corsets are not
uncomfortable should hear us… But then, we should remember that we are NOT used
to wear them all day, every day, and we do not wear them enough to really get
used to them. Historical women started to wear some kind of stays in their
young age (“training corsets” were just as different from grown up corsets than
training bras are from push-up bras).
And also,
there is a misconception, that we stopped wearing corsets… Oh, we do wear them.
We just call them differently. We call them shapewear these days.
