https://adamselindisdress.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/corsetted-victorians-and-others-myths-and-reality/, Pingback: What News Australia’s Tightlacing Article Failed to Mention » Lucy's Corsetry, Pingback: The Complicated Feminist Ethics Of Corsets And Waist Trainers - Democratsnewz, Pingback: XpressVids.Info | The Complicated Feminist Ethics Of Corsets And Waist Trainers, Pingback: The Complicated Feminist Ethics Of Corsets And Waist Trainers - AltoSky. Tight lacing—cinching a corset to achieve a very small, or wasp, waist—began in the 1820s and 1830s after the advent of corsets made with metal eyelets. Fig. This created a lot of pressure in the abdomen area and caused respiratory and reproductive problems. Fashion’s slaves. Many of the doctors against tight lacing, including O’Followell, did not condemn corsets as a whole. They reduced the appearance of the waist, while exaggerating the bust and hips, much like today's shapewear pieces. The corsets of the 1840s were cut from separate pieces stitched together to give roundness to the bust and shaping over the hips. These corsets, they claimed, improved posture and “preserve[d] the lines demanded by fashion, but without discomfort or injury.”12. B. Straightline corset. The Lancet published a number of letters about the subject: “Death from tight lacing” (14 June 1890), “Effects of tight lacing” (16 January 1892) and “Civilisation and the corset” (11 December 1909). Above all, it was an age of paradox and power. Many health problems once blamed on the corset are now clearly not the fault of the undergarment. Corset will effect women's pregnancy if wearing a long time. ( Log Out /  In reality, corsets do compress your organs – but so does bending, leaning, sitting, and, of course, pregnancy! New York: Abrams; 1997. great article – I linked it to my own about busting corsets myths- hope you don’t mind! Tel: +44 (0)20 7405 3474 These rumors were … By measuring 19th-century corsets and dresses, historians have determined that women probably did not cinch their waists below 20 inches.4 (By comparison, today many U.S. stores list their XXS waist size at 23.5 inches.5,6) While many waists were still quite small, they may never have gone to the 14-inch extremes reported in women’s magazines, regardless of what fashion drawings depicted.4, A tightly laced corset could reduce lung capacity, irritate skin, and weaken back and chest muscles used to being supported.2 Whether tight lacing caused long-term health issues, like reduced pelvis size, constipation and digestive issues, and reproductive problems ranging from miscarriage to uterine prolapse, is more difficult to assess and remains unclear.2,4,7. Susan Isaac, Information Services Manager, © 2020 The Royal College of Surgeons of England As Gerhart S. Schwartz wrote in a 1979 Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine article, “one disease after another found an explanation which was unrelated to the corset.”9. This technical innovation allowed the waist to be tightly constricted, sometimes as far as 17 inches creating the fashionable hourglass figure popular during the 19th century. The obvious health risks, including damaged and rearranged internal organs, compromised fertility. Corsets did not cause scoliosis, the crushing of the liver, cancer, or tuberculosis. Binding femininity: An examination of the effects of tightlacing on the female pelvis. Available at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1807654. Davis L. No, corsets did not destroy the health of Victorian women. Usually put about by men doctors or by obese women who don't want [can't be bothered] to control their figures. D. Waist formed by the straightline corset. Paris: Maloine; 1908. 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