We do 1901. There is a posture shown in many contemporary illustrations
where the bust is pushed forward and the butt is pushed backward, such
that a standing woman is bent into an S-shaped curve (think Gibson
Girl). I can hardly present this un-natural, but historically correct,
posture as flattering. (It's really hard on the back too - I've tried
it.) But many dated contemporary photographs show women not exhibiting
this posture. So I'm going to have to be careful playing the
"flattering" card here. And the silhouette I present as the one to copy
will have to be taken from the moderate end of what was done in our period.
But isn't much (or even most) of that look an optical illusion rather than
actual physical posture? Lots of floof in the front and a pad for the
buttocks should give that look.
Fashionable contemporary corsets were cut to make the body do that. (Norah
Waugh's book "Corsets and Crinolines" has the pattern I used for
mine.) The front floof, and not pads but the cut of the skirt in back,
accentuated this look. But throughout the period of this corset shape, the
earlier non-S-shape corsets were available, at least according to Sears
catalogs. So I'm not insisting that any of our living history women do
that to themselves, since something similar can be accomplished by a little
front floof and contemporary skirt cutting.
CarolynKayta Barrows
dollmaker, fibre artist, textillian
www.FunStuft.com
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