Dear Sir, – Discussing the question of figure training with a friend the other day, she mentioned that she had been made to undergo a course of training to achieve her figure. She was averse to the idea, but her mother who was something of a martinet, and who advocated and practised tight-lacing insisted on the training.
My friend was corseted in the ordinary way until she was fifteen, and then the tightening up process was commenced. After a while she rebelled and began to loosen the laces.
One morning her mother found her night corset laces slackened and promptly commenced to lace my friend’s corset so that she had great difficulty in undoing the laces. The next time she was detected her mother said nothing. My friend’s corsets were laced in the usual way, and she slackened the laces to suit herself. A few days later, however, after being laced into her night corset her mother placed round her waist a spring steel band only half an inch wide, which just met over her corsets and was secured by a small lock.
She advised my friend not to interfere with her stay laces, however my friend did with the result that her corset expanded top and bottom, whilst the steel band allowed of no corresponding relief at her waist. In a short while this became unendurable, and finally she had to request her mother to re-lace her.
For the rest of her training she wore a locked steel band over her corsets day and night, but she never again attempted to interfere with her stay laces. The band was not noticeable under her loose dress and as it exactly fitted over her corsets no inconvenience was caused so long as her stay laces were let alone.
My friend says she was never stretched or required to use the overhead bar for lacing. She wore a pair of very high heeled shoes and after putting on her corset, stood erectly, with her hands clasped behind the nape of her neck until she was laced in satisfactorily. She has an exquisite figure, but confesses she could lace in still further if she was so disposed, but admits she now corsets herself tightly because with long practise she has become accustomed to the thrill of a tightly laced corset, and as she put it “would feel lost without them.”
Yours Sincerely, “GOSSIP.”