The Victorian Influence on the Corset

by Mistress Michelle

Although, as we have seen from a previous article, corsets in one form or another have been with us since medieval times, there is no doubt that these garments reached the peak of development during the Victorian age. In the name of fashion, they became so rigorous as to be classed almost as instruments of torture.

Stays began to be composed not simply of whalebone or hardened leather but of bars of iron or steel three to four inches broad and many of them no less than eighteen inches in length. A ladies"magazine reported that it was no unusual thing "to see a mother lay her daughter down upon the carpet and, placing her foot upon her back, break half a dozen laces in tightening her stays." The excuse put forward for subjecting young girls to such arduous constriction was that, if one started the practice early enough, it would not become such a torture in later life! At the beginning of the Victorian era there were even "schools" where girls underwent a form of figure training.

There is a report of a pupil at such a school, aged but 13, who was fitted with corsets which did not open in front and were fastened by the under governess in such a manner that to attempt to unlace them during the night would be immediately detected at the morning's inspection. After the first week or two she felt no discomfort or pain of any kind though, as she was still growing, her stays became proportionately tighter." Who can say, one is forced to ask, that this helpless young creature did not feel any discomfort or pain?"

Surely it would be impossible for anyone to endure such a crushing garment without the most acute discomfort and for the whole night long. It seems at this distance impossible to approve of such practices, yet there were plenty of people ready to speak and write on the benefits a girl or a woman received from such restrictive practices. Ancient history was even dragged up, with hour-glass illustrations, as proof. Examples of the tight lace cult came from Java, Ceylon, the South Seas, Circassia, Egypt, Persia, India, Palestine and even Greece and Rome.

The intervening interval of the Middle Ages was always lightly passed over for that was a period when the waist was allowed to be its natural self. At least to a very considerable extent. One can only assume that the advocates of such a cruel fashion must have been sadistically minded. At least, they wished to see women placed under some form of restraint, thus emphasizing the domination of the male. One must also assume that many women must have been masochistically minded to submit to such things. Still, as we still know, women have always been so vain and such slaves of fashion, they will put up with practically anything to outdo another woman or capture male attention. The recent horrible outcrop of platform soles and high-wedge heels is a typical example of this.

Naturally not everyone was in favor of such tight corseting. In 1828 a middleclass tradesman wrote as follows:

"My daughters are living instances of the baleful consequences of the dreadful fashion of squeezing the waist until the body resembles that of an ant. Their stays are bound with iron in the holes through which the laces are drawn so as to bar the tremendous tugging which is intended to reduce so important a part of the human frame to a third of its natural proportion. They are unable to stand, sit or walk, as women used to do. To expect one of them to stoop would be absurd. My daughter, Margaret, made the experiment the other day; her stays gave way with a tremendous explosion and down she fell upon the ground, and I thought she had snapped in two."

A few years later, in 1837, an article in a magazine called "Female Beauty" stated:

"Women who wear very tight stays complain that they cannot sit upright without them, they are compelled to wear night stays when in bed... when the young lady spends a quarter of an hour lacing her stays as tight as possible, and is sometimes seen by her female friends pulling hard for some minutes, next pausing to breathe, then resuming the task with might and main, till after perhaps a third effort she at last succeeds and sits down covered with perspiration, then it is that the effect of the stays is not only injurious to the shape but is calculated to produce the most serious consequences."

Despite the obvious dangers and discomforts, women were not deterred, however. Many adult women boasted waists of no more than sixteen inches. One such, writing in the magazine "Queen" claimed such a waist and perfect health as well, saying: "if the various organs are prevented from taking a certain form or direction, they will accommodate themselves to any other with perfect ease."

Somehow such a fantastic statement is so typical of the Victorian era. Their knowledge of medicine and science was still remarkably small yet, in their arrogance, they already assumed "they knew it all!"

Considerably later on, in 1868, a woman confessed in the "Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine" that she had never laced tightly before being married. Then she discovered her husband was very much in favor of a small waist. At the time, her natural waist was twenty three inches (which many women today would be quite content with!) but undeterred, she ordered a pair of fourteen inch stays and, on the very day of purchase, managed to lace her waist down to eighteen inches. Then, sleeping in her corset at night she got her maid to tighten it one inch every day, until the laces met and her waist was fourteen inches. For the first few days the pain was very great... but in a month or so I would not have taken them off on any account." This lady added that the admiration she received from her husband amply rewarded her for her pains!

Forty or fifty pupils at a well known boarding school were subjected to the tightest of lacing every day... however much they might protest. One of the girls in a letter of protest wrote:

"We are daily imprisoned on vices of whalebone drawn tight by the muscular arms of sturdy waiting maids... all entreaties are in vain and no relaxation of the cruel laces is allowed during the day under any pretext except decided illness."

When this letter was published it aroused quite a fervor. Not one in sympathy for the girls, however. Masses of letters came from school- mistresses who practiced similar cruelties on their pupils. Tight-lacing was defended to the death and excused on grounds that ranged from " She did not experience any inconvenience after the first two years" to "it only makes girls temporary sufferers."

In the 1830's things became just fractionally easier for some women. India rubber had arrived and there were such advertisements as:

"An elastic stiffening of a vegetable substance has been invented, instead of that spiral brass wire now used for shoulder straps, glove tops, corsets etc..."

"Patent caoutchouc instantaneous closing corsets; this novel application of India rubber is by far the most extraordinary improvement that has ever been effected."

These advertisements appeared in 1836... yet by no means all women took advantage of the comparative relaxation then available. Five years later a fashion magazine was reporting:

"The modern stay extends not only over the bosom but also all over the abdomen and back down to the hips; besides being garnished with whalebone to say nothing of an immense wooden, metal or whalebone busk passing in front from the tops of the stays to the bottom; they have been growing in length by degrees; the gait of the Englishwoman is generally stiff and awkward there being no bend or elasticity of the body on account of the form of her stays."

During the next ten or fifteen years the battle between the old rigidity and the newer, more elastic materials continued. There came "The Corset Amazone" which by the aid of elastic lacings yields to every respiration, and by pulling a concealed cord can be shortened three inches.

The elastic bodice with front fastenings was another substitute. Yet, during the same period, there was advertising for "100 patterns of stays for ladies and 50 for children 71/2 for eighteen inch waist rising 6d. an inch."

We come now to an interesting point. Despite all the advertising and all that has been written about the astonishing slim waists that tight-lacing produced, we must ask, were the Victorians deluding themselves? At least to quite a considerable extent. One must ask this in view of a most interesting excerpt from Elizabeth Ewing's fascinating book, "Fashion in Underwear!"

A revealing footnote to these and a host of other accounts of Victorian tight lacing has been provided in our time by Doris Langley Moore, a leading costume expert. In order to find out the facts about the reputed eighteen inch waist, she measured more than a thousand waisted women's costumes from the Victorian period. She failed to find any less than 20 1/2 inches round. The Gallery of English Costume, Manchester, bears out her findings; it has no dress on show which measures less than 21 inches at the waistline. To minimize measurements is an enduring and not wholly unendearing vanity - did the Victorians indulge in self-delusions about their waists in the way that many substantial ladies of today will, without batting an eyelid, declare themselves size twelve and never admit to being a self evident sixteen?"

Be that as it may, there is no doubt at all that there was a vast amount of very tight lacing and corseting right through the 19th century. And, after all, a 21 inch waist is a pretty slim one, is it not?

By 1867 there was a "glove fitting corset" which had front fastenings held together by a spring latch. There was also, about this time a French back-fastening corset with a long steel busk down the front.

Until 1875 the corset, as a general rule, had remained fairly short.

Now it began to lengthen to give a long, slender figure. Apart from the physical, some saw it had a moral restraining influence as well.

"It is an ever present monitor indirectly bidding its wearer to exercise self restraint; it is evident of a well disciplined mind and well regulated feelings." Further evidence of the fantasy world in which so many Victorians seem to have lived!

In around 1887 came an innovation which was to have a marked erotic effect on the minds of men for generations to come. The suspender was invented. Hitherto, of course, garters had held up stockings but now suspenders of satin and elastic with clips for the stocking tops made their appearance. Great excitement was caused by Offenbach's Grand Opera Bouffe, presented at Leicester Square with "French dancers with naked thighs with suspenders stretched across them to keep up the stockings.

At first these suspenders were not always attached to the corset, but to a separate harness which went over the shoulders and crossed at the waist. A variation was a waist belt worn over the corset... which was very much like the small suspender belt which was to make its appearance many years later. By and large, however, it was the corset which became the suspender and stocking holder at this stage... and, practical as it might have been in its origination, its sexy effect was, and still is most powerful.

The coloring of corsets became very popular during the 1880's and they came to be made of luxurious materials like silk, satin or brocade. For some reason yellow became a favorite color in the 1880's... and large frills and rosettes were attached in abundance. In short, the corset had become not only a garment to emphasize the lines of the figure... thrusting out the breasts and buttocks while it slimmed the waist... it had now developed into something which had a sexual attraction of its own. Men fell for it hook, line and sinker.

The majority did so as it made their lady-love more femininely shapely. Also the very restrictive nature of it gave them a feeling of possessive superiority. In a way, the body of the woman they desired was "caged"... held ready to be aqwreleased by them and subsequently enjoyed.

On the other hand, there were, and are today, a considerable number of men who view the corset quite differently. Strange as it may seem, for them it is not a garment which renders the woman submissive, quite the contrary in their view it emphasizes their dominance!

The "Mistress" whom they yearn to prostrate themselves before is a woman of Junoesque proportions which are enhanced by the tightly laced corset she wears. Most probably the corset is one of black leather... a material which appeals to the masochistically minded.

Naturally there were women and brothels who catered for such men and they knew how to dress appropriately to satisfy their clients, many of whom paid handsomely for the privilege of becoming made - temporarily at least into submissives. For, as is well known, the Victorian reign was not only the age of the corset, it was an age of flagellomania as well. Indeed, it became known as the "Vice Anglais".

The following is an account (possibly partly fictional) given by a young aristocratic gentleman who had a taste for such things and could afford to indulge them in a well-quipped brothel: "The Madame who received me was a woman of appropriately severe looks which immediately sent a shiver of mingled apprehension and pleasure up and down my spine. I would have guessed her age to be something like 45 years, which was perhaps rather older than I would have preferred.

She was garbed in a corset of black satin, heavily reinforced with whalebone which stretched from her ample breasts - which were thrust high by it - down to the tops of her strong white thighs. The waisting was tight enough to give her an hour-glass effect, but was not over-tight. Black satin and elastic suspenders, taut to her stockings, were in stark contrast to her bare flesh. There were four attached to each stocking. The ankle boots she wore had something like a dozen buttons on them and the heels were unusually high.

She ordered me to divest myself of my clothing, which I did promptly and she then produced a birch-rod composed of about half a dozen slim switches, held together by a red ribbon binding at the handle end.

She announced she was going to give me half a dozen strokes "as a preliminary" and as a means of impressing her authority on me. These strokes I received kneeling over a low stool. They stung and smarted painfully, but I made not a sound. I am hardened to such things and, strange as it may seem to many, pain provided it is kept within limits - gives me pleasure. No doubt, by that preliminary beating, the Madame was also testing out my powers of endurance.

"I have many girls here to serve me," she then announced, "but you, abased wretch that you are, are going to be honored by serving one of them!"

"I was both intrigued and excited by this. It was a diversion I had not experienced before. The Madame then conducted me to another room where I found waiting one of the young ladies of her house. She was pretty, about 20 or so and quite naked. This girl went on her knees before the Madame but was told to rise. It was I who had to go on my knees before the girl. In effect I had been made the slave of the slave... and, upon Madame's orders and under her watchful eyes, I had to kiss and tongue the girl from her feet up to her waist line.

Naturally enough it was an exercise which roused me greatly and I received several slashing strokes of the birch which were intended, no doubt, to subdue my ardor. If anything, they had the opposite effect!

My final act of abasement was to have to garb the girl in similar fashion to the Madame. That is to say, fasten on and lace up a short, waist-nipping corset... attach the suspenders to stockings which I had previously drawn on... and then button up her black boots.

Perhaps something of my agitation can be imagined. All of her body was constantly exposed to my gaze and repeatedly my hands and fingers were forced to come into contact with her young flesh. Yet... I knew well enough... that young body would ultimately be denied me.

A slave such as myself would never be permitted to enjoy such a thing. That, believe me dear reader, is how I wished it to be difficult though you may find it to understand.

Throughout this dressing process, the Madame's orders were precise and strict. If ever I was slow or erred, the birch was swift to fall.

Again and again it contorted me with fiery pain. When lacing was not tight enough... or suspenders not taut enough... buttons clumsily hooked. But I struggled on till my task was complete.

The climax of my humiliation and suffering came when the girl was permitted to flog me with the birch for the "honor" I had been giving in so serving her. The torment became almost unbearable... and the ultimate release I sought came suddenly and spontaneously.

The flogging ceased immediately. After numerous salves had been applied to my lacerated flesh I was permitted to leave. And I left well satisfied.

This account well illustrates the strong, erotic power of the corset. Here it is doubly strong, for two women are encased in the tight leather. There can be little doubt that the author's bizarre satisfaction would have been considerably lessened if he had undergone this treatment in the absence of a garment which had such special significance for him.

The corset as an erotic garment continued into the Edwardian era... and, of course, beyond that. It still had its practical uses for shaping the figure but its severity lessened.