This from Valerie Steele's "The Corset: A Cultural History" (2001)
"There do exist in museum collections certain notorious iron corsets,
which are usually dated to about 1580-1600. But were they really the
first fashionable corsets? Modern scholars who have examined them
tend to believe that these metal corsets were probably orthopedic
devices designed to correct spinal deformities. - 'when they are not,
as is commonly the case, fanciful "reproductions". There is no
evidence that they were worn by women as stays.' Instead, it seems
that two types of corsets appeared in the sixteenth century:
fashionable corsets created by tailors, which sometimes incorporated
metal as well as whalebone stays, and orthopedic corsets constructed
from plates of perforated metal, hinged at the sides, which were used
by surgeons."
Katy
On 11/8/06, Penny Ladnier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I have in my online library three images of two metal corsets for this
period in chapter 4 of the following book.
Book info:
W.B.L. (listed author),The Corset and the Crinoline: A Book of Modes and
Costumes, London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1868. This book is about the
history of corsetry and crinoline.
Here is a paragraph from the book about the metal corsets from page 75:
"Several writers have mentioned the 'steel corsets' of this period, and
assumed that they were used for the purpose of forcibly reducing the size of
the waist. In this opinion they were incorrect, as the steel framework in
question was simply used to wear over the corset after the waist had been
reduced by lacing to the required standard, in order that the dress over it
might fit with inflexible and unerring exactness, and that not even a fold
might be seen in the faultless stomacher then worn. These corsets (or, more
correctly, corset-covers) were constructed of very thin steel plate, which
was cut out and wrought into a species of open-work pattern, with a view to
giving lightness to them. Numbers of holes were drilled through the flat
surfaces between the hollows of the pattern, through which the needle and
thread were passed in covering them accurately with velvet, silk, or other
rich materials. During the reign of Queen Catherine de Medici, to whom is
attributed the invention of these contrivances, they became great
favourites, and were much worn, not only at her court, but throughout the
greater part of the continent."
Catherine's 13" waist is discussed in Chapter 4 and starts on page 72 and
the discussion of the metal corsets follows:
http://www.costumegallery.com/Library/1868/CorsetBook/Chapter4/pages/p72.htm
This book is in our subscription area of the Library. But you can view for
no charge a detailed table of contents for the book at:
http://www.costumegallery.com/1868/CorsetBook/ . There are ten chapters to
this book; we have eight of them online. Chapters 8 and 10 are being coded
for the web at this moment. The last part of this project is a complete
index from the book and links to their respective webpages. The images for
Chapter 10 are online. There are 224 pages to this book and it has been a
massive project two-year project of typing, html coding, and prepping the
images. Several people have worked on getting this book online. Also a big
honorable mention to our lifetime subscriber, Kathleen Mitchell, who loaned
us the Corset book to put online.
The numbering of the pages may look strange. The numbering of the webpages
is exact to what is in the book. Each of the book images took up entire
pages, these pages are numbered, thus the missing page numbers. I choose to
put smaller images on the same webpage as where they mentioned in the text.
Readers may click on the small image and view an enlargement on the text
webpages. Or you can view all the images via the image index per chapter
from the table of contents.
Penny Ladnier,
Owner, The Costume Gallery Websites
www.costumegallery.com
www.costumelibrary.com
www.costumeclassroom.com
www.costumeencyclopedia.com
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--
Katy Bishop, Vintage Victorian
[EMAIL PROTECTED] www.VintageVictorian.com
Custom reproduction gowns of the Victorian Era.
Publisher of the Vintage Dress Series books.
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