Corsets and the War
In America and Britain, reference to the War effort was a good selling point, and Spirella subtly accused the poorly corsetted woman of being a virtual traitor. Like Spencer, the lack of proper corsetry was associated with slovenliness and goodness knows what else. If that didn't work, then the necessity of the corset to support the potential customer during her heavy war-time duties would. Don't think that a world shortage of rubber was a problem either; the corsetry business was established long before rubber became freely available and they had any number of alternatives, however, that didn't stop the advertisers drumming home the point. Munsingwear (USA - below) in particular pushed their new spun elastics. It seems that in 1944, Munsingwear had a powerful contract with the military.
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If you wander around many towns in Britain, you will notice where old iron railings have been cut out and never replaced. This was a consequence of the huge drive for iron and steel to make battleships and munitions. Less well known was that ladies pulled the metal stays out off their corsets as their own contribution to the war effort. This need for materials is the USA is illustrated in the LIFE magazine of 1938, several years before the USA came into the war incidentally:- "Women have been wearing corsets for about 4,000 year but it's less than 30 years since they have had the painless variety. To most women in recent times, wearing a corset meant nothing more than wiggling into a firm but not hard "girdle" which expanded and contracted with body movements. Such comfort will soon be only a memory. The WPB (War Production Board) has stepped into the boudoir and 1) decreed the number of square inches of elastic which may be used and 2) banned all zippers (that in those days were metal). Arrows on the pictures indicate legal elastic inserts and hook-and-eye closure. The result is that the new corsets, instead of "stretching to fit," will have to be designed and laced to fit. Lacings, according to Miss Frances Heller, corsetière at New York's Bonwit Teller, are a fine thing. They enable a woman to bind herself firmly where bulges are biggest, and shape remains as laced." The article goes on to explain how one deals with the arcane art of adjusting front- back- and side-lacing corsets. That the article occurs in the MODERN LIVING section of Life seems vaguely amusing these days, but steel for weapons was a deadly serious matter. |
These are the figures that grace the Contents page of the web site. We felt it was appropriate to explain the story behind them. |
In the 1940's Spirella concentrated on how the un-corsetted woman might not only lose her husband's affection, but possibly the entire War as well.
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1942 I caught my husband talking to a strange woman ! I sent Bob off to the party alone … Is this what it’s like to lose your husband’s love So I sat and took it from the ‘sitter’ To think I was Dreading his Furlough (leave - Ivy) ! 1943 I’ve got the biggest, loudest welcome mat in town - quoted the town's Spirella corsetiere. You can look attractive and feel fit in Wartime Don’t worry about rubber for corsets ! What British Women discovered about Active War Work ! There was a slight division of interests here, where Spirella wanted all women to look their best, yet rubber was being diverted for the war effort and corset steels (literally) were being turned into tanks and planes. |
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Whist still on the theme of war, we all remember the slogans (particularly if, like my husband, you enjoy the British comedy series from the 1970's, "Dad's Army") "Your country needs you" and "Loose talk costs lives". I doubt, however, if any advertisement before or since has encouraged one to "join the services and get a girdle".
Join the services and get a girdle!
Kayser (above) went to considerable lengths to reassure women that their slips would not take material from the war effort. After the war, Spirella used an excess of parachute silk to make a series of ladies pyjamas!
| Even Spencer used the war to jog
women's' consciences by insisting that only proper corsetry (in this case
during pregnancy) would allow a woman to continue her duties (in this case
the word useful is underlined). In the male chauvinistic world
of the 1940's, a women's duties were to her husband, home and country and
often corsets were the only barrier between a happy life and moral (not to
mention abdominal) collapse!
Both Spirella and Spencer put much emphasis on moral strength and attention to duty and chores. Frankly, in this day and age, I admire the sentiments. |
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Just to complete the association of corsetry and the war, Spirella, using their superb construction principles, made parachutes during the war, and G-suits for pilots after the war. The excess of parachute silk after the war was used for a limited range of ladies' nighties and pyjamas, and one of the MD's of Spirella after the war was none other than Oliver Philpott, the famous escapee of Stalag Luft III who was the third, and last, man through the 'Wooden Horse' tunnel.
