Technical Aspects
of Corsetry
Corsets and
Girdles: A
Lengthy Subject ...
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The lady
above appears in two very long Edwardian
corsets. Assuming her height is about 5 foot 4 inches (1.63 m), the corset on the
left would be a full 22" long and the one on the right an amazing
24", but
note that the extra length is in the skirt. |
This section might almost be called the rise and fall of tall corsetry.
A century ago, as these photographs show, corsets could be very long
indeed. Above the waist, one wonders if the wearer could even bend, and
below the waist, some corset skirts were so extreme that sitting down
was surely a major problem. Casual observers of these Edwardian corsets have
commented, how on earth did women walk, sit or even attended to the calls
of nature? Observe the corset closely. The corset was only tight at the
waist. The bottom of the corset, still referred to today as the skirt, was
in fact simply a looser extension of the corset that allowed the clothes
to flow over the foundation without any lumps or bumps. The skirt didn't
need to be tight since its other purpose was to provide attachment for the
suspenders (garters). One of the primary functions of the corset or girdle
has always been to hold up one's stockings. In Edwardian times, stockings
barely came above the knees, however, as skirts became shorter, so the
stockings became longer and the corset shorter.
A
typical Gossard corset from 1920 Corsets in the earlier part of
the 20th century were habitually longer than those of our mothers'. Regard
the Gossard picture on the right. The lady is
tall, let us say (by the standards of those times) 5 foot 6 inches (1.68m). In
that case those corsets are about 20" long.
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Corset length above the waist is simply a
requirement if the wearer wishes to achieve a 'waisted' silhouette, and in
post-war America, the girdle became the weapon of choice.
Far from being the preserve of
the Edwardian lady or the corseted elderly woman, length was a feature
beautifully demonstrate by these American models below for Poirette
and Smoothie. Some long-legged panty-girdles (the famous LLPG that never
quite crossed the Atlantic in all its glory) could measure an alarming 22"
(56 cm) in length.
In Scandinavia, the tall girdle was very much in
demand in the 1950's and 60's. The high-waisted girdle was not without it
problems, as illustrated in the famous 'Mrs. Merrick bought a derrick' cartoon.
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This unbelievably corny advertisement for Talon Zippers
illustrates a daily chore for millions of women in the 1950's and that
was getting in and out of one's girdle. Mind you, once ensconced in your
rib-high Promise Poirette, the resulting silhouette was undeniably
attractive.
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Long corsets are still with us.
Two of the corsets described below in the 'weighty' section are 53 cm (21") long in the
back. Spencer regularly advertised
corsets of this length and still makes them today and, of course, being a bespoke house, a taller
lady would have ordered proportionately longer corsets. I know of one very tall Danish lady whose corsets were an amazing
16" below the waist and 7 " above the waist at the back. That's
23 inches (58 cm) in total! We met this lady on a Nile cruise and, despite the searing
temperatures outside, she rigorously maintained her heavy stays, for
indeed, she needed them. An ailing back required all the support of the
corset if she was to participate in the interesting excursions; which she
enjoyed to the full. I mention this, since ultra-long corsets usually can
be classed as surgical supports.
We have added some notes on long corsets in the Corset
Detective page. Of course, what constitutes a long corset depends on the
relative height of the wearer. We met a bubbly barrel shaped woman many years
ago. Barely 5 feet tall (1.5 metres) she had no waist at all to the extent that
her corset required shoulder straps in case the strain of her stockings actually
pulled her corset off! The Spirella corset that she wore was only 18" long, but
it covered her from thighs to armpit. She certainly felt that she was wearing a
long corset. Sadly, having invested quite some money in this foundation, the
chafing of the shoulder straps against her bosom forced her to consign it to the
back of her drawers where her children rescued it years later after she had
passed away.
Our friend in these photographs wears one of the longest contemporary corsets in
our experience. The lady who is 5' 10" tall wears a front- and back-laced
Spencer posture corset purchased from Spencer of England in 2005 (the modern
equivalent of the Spirella 325). The corset is 23½"
long at the back! The satin back-laced brassiere (from Hunkemoller in Den Haag -
2000) contains any flesh that might escape over the top of the corset. When the
front-lacing is considered as well, there is over 50 inches of lacing to adjust!
We have seen and even possess some seriously long corsets in our collection, however, they pass
beyond the world of the conventional or even
surgical and enter a realm of fantasy. |
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... and a Weighty
one too!
| How much did corsets
weigh? We put it to the test using three fairly substantial Spirella 325's
from both sides of the Atlantic and dating between 1960 to 2000.
The modern Spencer (ex-Spirella)
corset from Britain a few years ago weighs 500 gr (just over a pound -
below right). The corset on the right which came from the USA in the late
1960's weighs in at 660 gr (1lb 7oz); below left, the Canadian corset
from1970 weighs an X-ray challenging 800 gm (nearly two pounds.)
In
fairness, the Canadian garment carries four substantial back support
'steels' (made of Aluminium).
It was perfectly possible in the
late 1960's to have ordered a back-support corset with underbelt, in a
strong, yet fashionable material. Such a garment would have weighed well
over one kilogramme (two pounds).
One
of our new Spencer corsets ordered for a friend in 2005,
by virtue of its length (23") weighs in at 880 gr (just under two pounds),
and that is without spinal steels. Had such a corset been made 20 years
ago from heavy corset brocade, one feels that the three pound barrier
might well have been threatened!
For comparison, a M&S satin elastic girdle
weighs in at 350 gr (12 oz) |
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Such weighty foundations have all
but disappeared, indeed, from the 1960's onwards, the thrust was towards
lightness and comfort. I have no objection to comfort at all, however, a
foundation is a foundation and should do its job. Did the Playtex girdle at 98
grams (right) really have any effect at all? Certainly not on the slim model in
the advertisement!
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Who wore what, when
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The facts and figures of corsetry might be obvious to myself and
my female peers, but
my husband has a typically male approach to such problems and resorts to mathematics
and some basic assumptions to determine what is fact, and what is fiction. As he
often says "In these days of unsolicited and gratuitous misinformation, it
pains me, as a scientist, to see so much conjecture and political expedience
rendered under the banner of factual data. I would hate to be so cynical as my
old tutor at college who, quite candidly expostulated that "Most of what
you will learn is fiction. Use your brains; THINK. A minute's thought is
worth a day of effort"". Amazingly, my husband's agonising over the PC
and the following chart actually do explain rather a lot!
In this analysis, there are many sweeping assumptions and generalisations,
however, the end results explain much of what is observed.
The graph says it all. It was constructed from basic
assumptions. Over 100 years old, the database is statistically non-existent.
Below 14, we're looking at relics from Victoriana (almost). I simply considered
when a woman was born, what was the chance of her wearing an appropriate
foundation for each particular year, and then relied upon the deluge of opinions
that Ivy and Bunts could reproduce! Let me help you by taking a few examples:-
1) A lady born in 1900 (vertical
axis - on the left), living in 1920
(horizontal axis). The colour is pale purple, close to dark purple. This young
lady would be likely to wear a corset if upper class, and less likely if lower
class. Her older contemporaries would almost certainly wear a corset.
2) A lady born in 1920 living in 1960 (my mother and her
friends). Definitely into girdles, but note the rapid decline after the 'Beatles
era', and the rapid uptake of the panty-girdle. Oddly, there is a dip in the
popularity of the panty-girdle that has only resurfaced in the last decade.
3) A lady born in 1950 living in 2004. The graph predicts a
reasonable chance that she wears a panty-girdle, but the chance the she wears a
corset is extremely small. Nevertheless, extremely small multiplied by the
potential 25 million eligible women in Britain is still a finite number. Ivy is
one of that finite number!
4) The corset appears to make a comeback at the end of the
1930's. This is simply the corset-wearing generation discarding such garments,
but soon reverting as older age took the upper hand.
5) Ivy's 'Lost Generation',
is represented by the horizontal yellow band, i.e. those women who are currently
aged 65 to 85 years old. Certainly, they were regular girdle-wearers, however,
you have to go back another 20 years to catch the corset-wearing Edwardians.
That's why genuine recollections are usually the preserve of the very elderly.
6) Note the rapid rise and fall of the girdle. The corset (as we
currently know it) has been around for half a millennium, and the Spirella 305
(marketed today) for eight decades. The panty-girdle, invented well before WWII,
came to prominence in the late 1940's and is still effectively the only lower
foundation on offer today. It's future looks secure. That will be at least six
decades. The girdle came and went in three magnificent decades of style and
control. The corset it supplanted eventually would out-sell it. The
panty-girdle, took America by storm and then invaded Europe. The girdle, like
the Apollo missions, had been years incubating, still lingers on in reduced
form, but was at its zenith for a remarkably short period. We forget how long
ago that was. The Beatles, the culture of whom changed the world, and
incidentally terminated the girdle, are now eligible for pension. How did it all
pass so quickly?
The History of Foundations from the Sears Catalogue
We have a number of Sears catalogues dating from
1918 to 1972. A quick walk through their pages is to take a trip down memory
lane, however, my husband decided to test the veracity of our article above. In
short order, a number of expected conclusions appeared and a few unexpected
ones. Of course, the Sears catalogue does not reveal what women wore, simply
what Sears expected them to buy; the relative sales figures are unknown to us.
Nevertheless, here are some observations:-
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Corsets are present in
all the catalogues, however, from the late-1930, back-lacing steadily gives way
either to front-lacing or cluster-lacing. Basically, donning one's corset became
a task for oneself, not one's maid. From the late 1950's the number of pages
devoted to corsets decreases drastically, and the models for sale are more
'surgical corsets' or supports rather than fashion garments. Corselettes stand
the test of time as well evolving from complex under-belted creations to the
ultimate entrapment device, the long-leg panty-corselette. The garment was
extremely popular prior to the WWII mainly because independent brassieres
were not available. The corselette pre-WWII was really a corset extended to hold
the bosom. The word brassiere appears after WWI but their appearance in any
number does not happen until after WWII. Long-line brassieres never occupy much space
in the catalogue and steadily the conventional bra would dominate the pages,
and subsequently the floor space in the department stores.
Girdles arise and fall over a
three decade period, the shortest of any serious foundation garment. What might
have been a longer success was squashed in short order by the panty-girdle. This
garment first appears pre-WWII but dramatically dominates the catalogues as the
1950's come to an end having evolved into the long-leg panty-girdle. For two decades, American women wore a bra and
panty-girdle; it might as well have been a uniform (right).
Incidentally, Sears never used the term panty-girdle, simply panty or girdle.
Waspies and basques enjoy a
few pages during this period, oddly a decade after Dior's new look that required
such garments. Rubber is a mainline material for 10% of garments pre-WWII, but
the material requirements of this conflict precluded rubber for corsetry for the
best part of a decade. It returns during the 1950's and 1960's, latterly under
the championship of Playtex, only to die out in favour of what a friend
incorrectly called more natural fabrics (what is more natural than rubber?).
Oddly, we see a renaissance today of rubber corsetry in Latin America.
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That was the American
experience. Typically, before the internet generation, modes and customs from
America would cross the Atlantic about five to ten years later and, indeed, a
British history follows the same course, albeit delayed; the move into the
panty-girdle occurring at the end of the 1960's. One major difference however,
was that Europeans never embraced the long-leg panty-girdle with the fervour of
their American sisters, and whilst Americans wore some really elegant, sleek
foundations, the British were reduced to little more than elasticated
underpants. Amazingly,
spear-headed by the fashion-conscious Asian market, the panty-girdle (although not
called as such) once again fills the shelves of the stores.
Football Tummy
Corset Detective
(this page has been moved)
