I have been spending my days swooning over 1880's bustle dresses and 1890's leg of mutton sleeves lately, and I have found a huge amount of misinformation about certain historical garments on the internet. Specifically, I have read millions of myths about corsets and stays (the early version of corsets which created a cone shape, like Marie Antoinette).
As someone who has researched, made, and worn corsets, I have a pretty strong opinion about the 'fake news' that is constantly spread about historical garments. The idea that women's clothing throughout history has been painful, verging on torture devices is spread through TV and movies, conversation, and even academics who do not research fashion. The implications of these myths bother me, mainly because it makes women's roles in history even more superficial, and gives the impression that women have only ever been abused and beaten down. The idea that women were struggling with their tortuous clothing so they were unable to take part in historical events is just another way to cut the majority of a gender out of the history books.
Before I continue, I want to clarify that history should not be glorified, and I am in no way encouraging that. Every era in the past has major issues and events, and the amount of discrimination, hatred, and violence that has been a part of human history is something that must be kept in the back of our heads when we are considering it. Modern people also need to remember that the era, area, culture, language, race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc, that we are a part of shapes our opinions and ideas. When we look at historical fashion, our first impression might be that it is ugly and uncomfortable looking. The people of the era and place that it came from likely had majorly different world views due to the economic, political, and cultural climate. When I first started researching historical fashion (I was in middle school and completely obsessed with the Tudor era), there were so many things that I thought were so bizarre! Every era that I was unfamiliar with was ugly to my new eyes, and I completely believed everything that I had been told about the terror of wearing structural undergarments.
The longer that I spend researching fashion, the more I realize how little I know. My research has been incredibly Eurocentric. European and North American history is so easy to find, and it is more familiar to me. Obviously we can never get past our biases (and we don't always need to-- we have morals for a reason! Bad things happened in the past, you are allowed to completely disagree with historical views), but when looking at fashion and art through history, it is best to try to start with neutral eyes.
Lots of people are really fascinated with corsets. The mix of the beauty of them and the exaggerated stories make them enthralling. It's like looking at a deadly snake--beautiful colours and patterns! But they are there to warn you off.
However, that is not true in the majority of the cases! Lets start with how corsets are made, and how they work.
There have been versions of boned bodices and skirt supports for far longer than you may guess: the Minoan civilization (around between c. 3000 BC to c. 1100 BC) living on the island of Crete possibly had the first version of corsets and hoop skirts (learn more about the Minoans here: https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/greece/gr1020e.html, https://ancient-greece.org/history/minoan.html).
Skipping forward to the Renaissance, and we find stiffened bodices again in Western fashion! If you have ever watched The Borgias, you may recognize the empire waisted gowns of the late 1400's in Italy. I am not an expert in this area in the slightest, but I do have some knowledge of the fashion (mostly from looking at art and extant garments, or garments that have survived until now and are on display or examined by specialists). Near the end of the century and more into the 16th century (the 1500's), the bodices of these gowns were stiffened, often with reed or boning (https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/beauty-adorns-virtue-italian-renaissance-fashion/). The steel bodice was possibly started in the mid-1500's, though they might have come in earlier.
Left: Titian, Portrait of Francesco Maria Della Rovere, c. 1537, oil on canvas, 114 x 103 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy); right: Titian, Portrait of Eleonora Gonzaga, c. 1537, oil on canvas, 114 x 103 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy). https://smarthistory.org/gender-renaissance-italy/
Bringing in steel often scares people. Do not fear! Steel can be used in different ways in support garments, depending on what the desired outcome is. For wealthy upper class women, they may use more steel bones to create the perfect conical shape (which was desired in the 1500s-1700s. This shape flattens and pushes up the bust). Each bone would be a centimeter or so width wise, so it is still flexible to a certain extent. Some stiffened bodices included only a few steel bones for structure, while the rest of the boning channels were filled with whale bone.
Whale bone is another commonly misunderstood material. Whale bone, also known as baleen, is not actually bones from whales. It is the filter they use in their mouth (sort of like teeth, but more flexible so that the whale can push the water out but keep krill in). Baleen can be cut into thinner strips for corsetry (https://slate.com/culture/2010/11/a-short-history-of-corsetry-from-whalebone-to-lycra.html). During the 17th and 18th century, it was very commonly used to stiffen the stays. Baleen was nice because it would mold slightly to the body with use, but it still gave the desired shape.
The stays of this era were not used for waist reduction. This is another important point to remember. Although it could reduce the waist by a few inches, that was not the main point of them. They were used to support the bust and hold the massive weight of skirts that were worn over them, as well as to give a popular shape (similar to how we may wear a push up bra or shaping leggings to give us the popular shape of our time). Each outfit had multiple layers that went overtop of the stays, including multiple petticoats and a bum pad or panniers (both tied around the waist to support the skirts. Panniers give the unique shape that is known of Marie Antoinette's era, with the wide hips). Because all of the layers were made from natural fibers, such as cotton, linen, wool, and silk, they could be incredibly heavy. Not wearing stays to distribute that weight could be very hard on the hips and back, so the stays had a few functional purposes that we like to ignore (https://www.lancasterhistory.org/debunkingcorsetrymyths/).
If a woman was not upper class, she might wear stays made of reed or jumps (and yes, lower class women wore these support garments too! Even when they were working!). Reed is a type of grass, which they would use a bundle of and allow to dry. This would give the bodice a nice stiffness with good flexibility for ease of movement. Jumps had little to no boning at all, instead they were quilted to give a good shape (this blog made a stunning pair a few years ago: http://www.couturemayah.info/engjumps.html).
At the beginning of the 1800's, the popular styles changed wildly. For political reasons (mostly to do with the French Revolution in the late 1780's), the style popularized by Marie Antoinette went out in favour of the Jane Austen look that we know so well from Pride and Prejudice. If you want to see fabulous examples of Regency gowns, I would highly recommend the movie Bright Star, or the 1995 television series of Pride and Prejudice. The new version of Emma also has a brilliant look at the era.
The stays of this era (we still have not quite hit the 'corset' yet) could be long, ending at the hip, or short, ending just below the bust. They also worked less on taking in the waist and more on lifting and separating (and supporting!) the bust. The long stays used a wooden busk (an inch wide strip of wood that went up the center front to just below or in between the bust) and some cording at the bust gores.
Those who specialize in this era could tell you much more about the changes in stay shape between the early 1800's up to the 1840's, but I find to untrained eyes they have quite a similar shape and look. The largest difference is that in the 1830's to 40's they only had long stays, the short stays had gone out of fashion as the waistline lowered. You can also see the beginning of an emphasis on the waist, with the difference between the waist, hip, and bust measurements starting to get bigger. These stays are still not made to take in the waist at all, more to lengthen it. They had hip and bust gussets, and a wooden busk. If there was extra stiffening, it was usually done by cording, which was threading cord through channels to add support for the bust.
The 1850's and 1860's were the start of calling these garments corsets. They had the hourglass silhouette that we are all so used to, and used a different kind of busk. This one was made of steel and could be done up or undone in front, which made the corset easier to put on.
This is also around the time that certain Victorian doctors started to spread the idea that corsets were pressing on womens organs, a myth that has kept up until modern times. There is also this idea that every woman in the Victorian age had a tiny waist, and if she didn't that she tight-laced. To begin with, corsets came in every single shape and size. Corsets need to fit well to ensure that they are comfortable and supportive, so seamstresses made them to fit comfortably. Secondly, the padding that was often added to the bust of bodices and the large crinolines and skirts made the waist look smaller than it actually was. Thirdly, although some women did tight-lace, that really started in the Gibson Girl era (a popular figure in the late 1800's and early 1900's), it was very, very, very few women who did that, and they would not have done that every day.
Remember as well, even though photography was not as well developed as it is now does not mean that they did not know how to alter them. Some photos have actually been retouched to make womens waists look smaller as well.
Before I go on, I want to admire the skill that it takes to create these garments. Whether the corset is from ancient times (which, can we please acknowledge how incredible that is?? They have basically just figured out how to sew properly and they decided to make early versions of corsets and hoop skirts!) or a corded pair of stays from the 1830's, or a fully boned Victorian corset, the seamstress has put an incredible amount of knowledge, time, and skill into every single one.
The thing is that to draft the pattern for and then sew a corset, you need a ridiculous amount of skills. To begin with, you need detailed information about the specific person that you are making it for (when they were made by hand, before industrialization). A ton of measurements are needed to create the perfect pair of stays or the perfect corset -- the waist, the bust, the ribcage, the hips, the distance between each of those, the differences on each side since every person is a little bit asymmetrical... The list goes on and on. After that, the seamstress also needs to know their fabric well and how it will react being stretched, worn constantly, and moved and sweat in. After that, they need to understand how the rest of the materials work (such as reed, whale bone, steel, spiral steel, and wooden busks), and they need to chose the correct stitches to ensure that the corset will last a lifetime. Once the Victorian era hits, many of them also need to know embroidery, since most corsets had flossing at the top and bottom of the bones (flossing is a embroidered pattern that was originally supposed to hold the bones in place, but often ended up just being decorative).
The Victorian era is long (starting in 1837 and ending with Queen Victoria's death in 1901), so there is a huge variety of shapes and styles in corsets during this time. I have a particular fondness for the 1880's, but every year has unique new shapes and popular styles.
I want to stress that the vast majority of women in this time were not trying to get their waist to a certain tiny measurement. Most of the time, corsets barely take in the waist measurement at all, and what it does take in is just fat, which either moves up to the bust or down to the stomach. I also want to stress that the popular shape of these times are not at all the same as the current one. Through most of history, women did not care if they had a belly. Please read that sentence as many times as you need to understand that it is incredibly recent that we have actually cared about what our stomach looked like. Many metal busks (the little latches that are at the front of most Victorian corsets) were shaped at the bottom to give women a bit of a stomach, since that was actually a popular shape for quite a while.
It is so easy to judge all of this with modern eyes and say "look how the men have forced women into these torture devices!" You may find it interesting that many of the popular shapes were actually hated by many men of the time, and it was actually women who chose to wear them. For example, we have a huge amount of satire from newspapers about the 'silly' things that women wore, such as bustle dresses and crinolines. Many of the large skirt supports and large bonnets or hats forced men to walk and dance farther away from the women. Just like how many men choose to tell women what makeup they don't like today (such as red lipstick), this also happened in the past. Women often chose to ignore whatever complaints men came up with in regards to their fashion and continued to wear fabulous, ridiculous things.
Yes, womens waists did often look very small in photos from these eras. This is actually an illusion. With the emphasis placed on the bust and skirt, it makes any waist looks tiny, no matter what the true measurement is. Also, padding was used constantly! There was often padding inside the corset itself to make the bust or hips look larger (or to make the body more symmetrical), and there was also often padding on the inside of the dress bodice to make the bust even larger and smoother. There was no taboo about this, it was incredibly common for wealthy, upper class women to do this.
Also, not every era wanted a tiny waist. For example, the early 1900's were less focused on the waist and more focused on creating an S Bend silhouette (often using shirts that bloused out at the front over the bust and stomach, then a smooth front of the skirt with padding at the bum). As you can see in the photo below, there is not a huge difference between the measurements at the bust, the hips, and the waist. The example of retouched photos earlier in the post is another example of an S Bend silhouette, with an actual outfit on display instead of just the corset.
There are also so many examples of women of all sizes in paintings, photos, and videos once they became common. Women have always and will always come in every shape and size, and corsets did not ever mean to change or 'fix' that.
If you ignore the rest of this post, I just want you to take away a few key points:
1) There is a massive variety of shape and size of corset - the Gibson Girl who has tight laced is not even close to the way that the rest of women throughout history have used them.
2) A corset (and stays) was a support garment and worn by women of all classes, not just upper-class women.
3) Corsets have been around far longer than you may have been lead to believe.
4) Much of the information that you have about corsets is left over from satire and propaganda made by men who did not like the fashionable silhouettes of the time.
And also... don't use the word corset for a boned bodice made before the 1840's, they were called stays.
Thank you for everyone who has managed to read this entire piece! I love to learn and share information about fashion history, but these kind of posts take me a ton of time that I could (and should) be using for school work, so it means a ton to me when people take time out of their day to give it a read.
~Katherine