Dear Sir,–I am new to your most excellent paper and hope in time to become a “Constant Reader,” and I am very interested to see the keenness displayed by your readers in the female form divine.
In comparing bygone fashions with those of our own times, it is generally taken for granted that the modern girl’s lack of stiff corsets is responsible for her freedom. This is really only a very small part of the truth, as it is surprising how soon girls get used to and to like stiff stays. Their freedom is almost entirely due to the much lighter and shorter dresses they now wear, and to the slackness that follows every big war.
A lady of my acquaintance, though not small otherwise is the proud possessor of a strapping young son, has a waist that is at the most 18in., and as much freedom as any happily married woman desires.
She is an extraordinarily good tennis player, and dances divinely. Further information would be betraying confidences.
Not so long ago, when girls used to take pride in their figures, the result was seldom pleasing to our modern eyes owing to the heavy and unhealthy dresses they wore. We must remember, though, that this was mainly due to the fact that they had nothing like the choice of material and colour that we have now, and had to make do with what they had.
A trim figure, not laced out of all artistic proportion hair dressed to show a prettily shaped head, short skirt of one of our beautiful new mate go at for their soppy dress may come into their own and delight us with the figures they have tended carefully during these “lean” years.
That girls loved their firm corsets may be seen from correspondence in periodicals from 1860, when the vexed question opened onwards.
The trouble was that the girls often liked tight lacing so much that they could not be induced to leave well alone, and went to such extremes that their health was often damaged, and the rational dress enthusiasts won the day.
It was the abuse of corsets, and not their use, that brought stays into disfavour, and most extraordinary troubles have been put down to corsets ever since.
Grecian ladies, after tiring of the games and exercises we have heard so much about, kept their figures in trim by wearing zones, or broad girdles, one to support the bust one to form the waist, and one round the hips. The fall of the Grecian people has been attributed to the practice!
Many people have, in fact, inveigled against corsets on the grounds that they soon become so fascinating to their wearers, both male and female, that tight lacing becomes a pernicious habit, to be compared with drug taking in its effects.
Let those who intend to enhance their beauty take due warning lest they cause the fall of the British Empire!
Though in no way connected with the trade, I have made a very careful practical and theoretical study of the art of figure training, and will be only too glad to help any of you readers who wish for assistance.