The Cultural Body: Alterations
Clothing
The Reshaped Waist
Because the lower five ribs are not attached to the sternum (breast bone), the human torso can be shaped by various techniques to produce a waistline of desirable and alluring contours. Introduced in Europe during the fifteenth century, corsets began as tightly wrapped bandages. Over the next four centuries, corsetry evolved to include stays (boards) and strings for extra-tight lacing. Respectable and virtuous Victorian women wore corsets; an "unlaced woman" (as opposed to "straight-laced") was thought to be a vessel of sin. In a desperate attempt to achieve the ideal, some women had their lower ribs surgically removed.
| "Corset diseases" such as fainting, hemorrhoids, coughing, and palpitations plagued many fashionable women. Corsets could displace internal organs and cause pulmonary disease, and occasionally led to miscarriages. They were eventually replaced in the 1930s by less constricting, but still reshaping, girdles.
European and American men did not entirely escape the demands of fashion. They, too, wore corsets and waist cinchers beneath their military, riding or court attire. However, once a man reached middle age, a paunch was more likely to be tolerated as a sign of his wealth and status. |
 94. Gregor Reisch, (c. 1467-1525), Margarita
Philosophica. One of the earliest printed illustrations
of the internal organs. |
Petticoats: The Bell-shaped Silhouette
Between 1830 and the late 1860s women's clothing created a bell-shaped silhouette. This effect was initially achieved by petticoats worn beneath the skirt. Petticoats consisted of seven or eight skirts often woven with horsehair which stiffened the fabric and added volume. The yards and yards of muslin, calico, and flannel made petticoats extremely cumbersome; the weight of these garments made walking a difficult task.
Petticoat
c. 1850.
Courtesy of the Department of Textiles and Clothing,
College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Iowa State University.
Crinoline Cages: The Bell-shaped Silhouette
By the late 1850s, women were liberated from cumbersome petticoats. The emerging steel industry now made possible the crinoline cage, a dome-shaped set of wire hoops. (Almost two hundred million pounds of wire were used for crinoline frames in Great Britian between 1854 and 1866.) Really voluminous skirts now became feasible. Although the light-weight construction of the crinoline freed the wearer from the bulky petticoats, it presented certain hazards. As cages had a tendency to swing, fireplaces posed a serious threat to its wearers; the shape of the cage and the yards of fabric covering it caused the clothing to ignite readily. The inflexible structure of the cage caused the wearer to lean backwards while descending a staircase. The cage was also a hazard in high winds; in one incident it was reported that the wind blew a crinoline-clad woman into the sea causing her to drown.
Crinoline cage
c. 1860.
Courtesy of the Department of Textiles and Clothing,
College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Iowa State University.
95. Illustration of the wind creating complications for women wearing petticoats and crinoline cages
Corsets
| Victorian undergarments reshaped a woman's body. Corsets flattened the stomach with their long stays (strips of a stiff material such as metal or whalebone) and uplifted the breasts. They also cut into the groin, forcing the wearer to pull in the small of her back and push out her chest. A kind of slip, called a chemise was worn under the corset to protect it from perspiration and to cushion the body against the stays. The effect achieved by a tightly-laced corset was a dramatically small waistline. This, in turn, accentuated a woman's hips, bosom and derriere. Corsets were omitted only for really active sports such as fencing or swimming. |
 96. "The correct view of the new machine for winding up the ladies." |
Corset
c. 1900.
Corset with 36 stays.
Courtesy of the Department of Textiles and Clothing,
College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Iowa State University.
Fashionable Silhouette: 1840
A suit can reshape a male physique according to the ideal body type of the day. For example, fashion plates illustrate the silhouette of 1841: a "pouter pigeon" chest, sloping shoulders, small waist and tiny feet.
Trousers
| Trousers shape the leg so it appears as a tubular appendage. Author Bernard Rudofsky writes this about the trouser: "The trinity of thigh, knee and calf, each marvelously molded and replete with eye and sex appeal, is stuck into a cylinder . . . but fails to do justice to a live one."
Taken from, Rudofsky, Bernard, The Unfashionable Human Body, (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1971.) |
 97. Ideal for men's physique |
 98. Men's trousers ideal verses actual |
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