Dear Sir, – I was very interested to see in your issue of Dec. 11th, a drawing on the fashion page a new small-waisted Paris creation in black satin. Since seeing it my friend wore a similar dress at a fancy dance recently. She wished to wear something different from the usual dance frock and hit upon the idea of a Victorian mode brought up to date. Of course the first difficulty was to obtain a neat waist.
In her enthusiasm she ordered a pair of long and very stiff corsets. When there were ready she had to undergo the ordeal of fitting, and willingly consented to be fastened by the wrists to a horizontal bar which was drawn upwards, so that she was lifted off the ground, making her waist as small as possible,
Then the corsets were fitted and laced up tightly. My friend begged for mercy, but her corsetiere did not stop until a trim waist had been achieved.
At first she felt rather uncomfortable as the corsets were very rigid. When the time came for the dance she was quite used to her tight corsets.
Her toilette consisted of a gown of black satin material, cut fairly low, which fitted over her corseted figure without a wrinkle from bust to hips and showed her curves to perfection.
The hem of the dress was transparent and revealed three starched petticoats of nearly the same length as her dress was very much in evidence when my friend sat or walked. Her legs were clad in fine black stockings held very tight by her corset suspenders, and on her feet were high-heeled patent shoes.
As her dress was sleeveless, she wore white kid gloves reaching to the arm-pits. In addition she was carefully made-up.
At the dance she was a great success and amply repaid for her trouble. Everyone, and especially the men payed compliments to her figure.
“ARTAY.”