Editing Corset (section)

== History ==
[[File:Woman's corset figured silk 1730-1740.jpg|thumb|upright|Woman's corset (stays) {{Circa|1730}}–1740. [[Silk]] [[plain weave]] with supplementary [[weft]]-float patterning, stiffened with [[baleen]]; [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]], M.63.24.5.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Sharon Sadako |last1=Takeda |first2=Kaye Durland |last2=Spilker |title=Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700–1915 |publisher=Prestel USA |year=2010 |isbn=978-3-7913-5062-2 |page=76}}</ref>]]{{Main|History of corsets}}

For nearly 500 years, bodies, stays, or corsets with boning made of reeds, [[whalebone]], or metal were a standard part of European women's fashion. Researchers have found evidence of the use of corsets in the [[Minoan civilization]] of early [[Crete]].<ref name="Steele">{{cite book|last=Steele|first=Valerie |title=The Corset: A Cultural History|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2001|isbn=0-300-09953-3}}</ref>{{Rp|5|date=May 2009}}

===16th and 17th centuries===
In the late 16th century, what would later be known as the corset was called "a pair of bodys."<ref name="Waugh">{{cite book |last=Waugh |first=Norah |title=Corsets and Crinolines |date=December 1, 1990 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-87830-526-2}}</ref> It consisted of a simple [[bodice]], stiffened with boning of reed or whalebone.<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|6}} A busk made of wood, horn, whalebone, metal, or ivory further reinforced the central front and created an upright posture. It was most often laced in the back, and was, at first, a garment reserved for the aristocracy. Later, the term "pair of bodies" would be replaced with the term "stays" and was generally used during the 17th and 18th centuries. Stays shaped the upper torso into a cone or cylinder shape.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Corset|last=Gupta|first=Richa|publisher=|date=February 13, 2013|isbn=|location=|pages=6}}</ref> In the 17th century, tabs (called "fingers") at the waist were added.

===18th century===
Stays evolved in the 18th century, during which whalebone was used more, and increased boning was used in the garment. The shape of the stays changed as well. While they were low and wide in the front, they could reach as high as the upper shoulder in the back. Stays could be strapless or use shoulder straps. The straps of the stays were generally attached in the back and tied at the front.
[[File:Jumps, quilted linen with silk embroidery. Late 17th-early 18th century. 01.jpg|alt=A garment resembling a quilted vest with ties at the sides. It is decorated with red and green embroidered birds and flowers.|thumb|A pair of quilted linen jumps, late 17th-early 18th century]]
The purpose of 18th century stays was to support the bust and confer the fashionable conical torso shape, while drawing the shoulders back. At that time, the eyelets were reinforced with stitches and were not placed across from one another, but staggered. That allowed the stays to be spiral laced. One end of the stay lace was inserted into the bottom eyelet and knotted, and the other end was wound through the eyelets of the stays and tightened on the top. "Jumps" were a variant of stays, which were looser, had no boning, and sometimes had attached sleeves, like a jacket.<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|27}} Women of all levels of society wore stays or jumps, from ladies of the court to street vendors.

Corsets were originally quilted waistcoats, which French women wore as an alternative to stiff stays.<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|29}} They were only quilted linen, laced in the front, and unboned. That garment was meant to be worn on informal occasions, while stays were worn for court dress. In the 1790s, stays began to fall out of fashion. That coincided with the [[French Revolution]] and the adoption of [[Neoclassicism|neoclassical]] styles of dress. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some men were known to wear corsets, particularly the widely mocked [[Dandy|dandies]].<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|36}}[[File:A man in his underwear is having his waist pulled in by two Wellcome V0040671.jpg|alt=A colored etching of two servants tightly pulling the laces of a man's corset.|thumb|"Lacing a Dandy," a satirical cartoon of a man being laced into a corset, 1819]]

===19th century===
In the early 19th century, when gussets were added for room for the bust, stays became known as corsets. They also lengthened to the hip, and the lower tabs were replaced by gussets at the hip and had less boning. In the 1820s, fashion changed again, with the waistline lowered to almost the natural position. That was to allow for more ornamentation on the bodice, which, in turn, saw the return of the corset to modern fashion. Corsets began to be made with some padding, for a waist-slimming effect, and more boning. Some women made their own, while others bought their corsets. Corsets were one of the first mass-produced garments for women. They began to be more heavily boned in the 1840s, and the shoulder straps were eliminated. By 1850, steel boning became popular.

With the advent of metal eyelets in 1827, tightlacing became possible. The position of the eyelets changed. They were situated opposite one another at the back. The front was fastened with a metal [[Busk (corsetry)|busk]]. The corsets of the 1850s–1860s were shorter, because of a change in the silhouette of women's fashion, with the advent of the [[hoop skirt]] or [[crinoline]]. After the 1860s, as the crinoline fell out of style, the corset became longer, to shape the abdomen, exposed by the new lines of the princess or [[cuirass]] style.

In 1855, a woman named Frances Egbert had trouble with her corsets, due to the front steel pieces constantly breaking as a result of strain.<ref name="Swanson-2019">{{Cite journal|last=Swanson|first=Kara|date=April 18, 2019|title=The Corset. A History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects, Claudy Op Den Camp and Dan Hunter eds., Cambridge University Press (2019)|url=https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=503093087027109088098071075113021007021074046013037037027004072122088095069021013094022030063118118055022124011030028098093018023061039092033025022113115103003011066038079123095027031074093125121019016097115085108113073024105121068110096002085091096&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE|journal=Northeastern University School of Law Research Paper No. 307-2017|via=SSRN}}{{Dead link|date=June 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> Consequently, her husband, Samuel Barnes, designed "reinforced steels" for Egbert's corsets. Barnes filed a patent for the invention 11 years later, and Egbert collected the royalties on this patent for 15 years following his death.<ref name="Swanson-2019" /> Following the case of ''[[Egbert v. Lippmann]]'', the US Supreme court deemed Barnes's and Egbert's [[patent]] as "public".

=== Corset controversy and dress reform ===
{{See also|Corset controversy}}
[[File:Le Corset de Toilette - 61 Fig.png|thumb|upright=0.6|A maternity corset, 1908]]

The new practice of [[tight-lacing]] instigated widespread controversy. [[Victorian dress reform|Dress reformists]] claimed that the corset was prompted by vanity and foolishness, and harmful to health. The reported health risks included damaged and rearranged internal organs, compromised fertility; weakness and general depletion of health. Those who were pro-corset argued that it was required for stylish dress and had its own unique pleasures; dress historian David Kunzle theorized that some enthusiastic fans of tightlacing may have experienced sexual pleasure when tightlacing, or by [[Frotteurism|rubbing]] against the front of the corset, which contributed to the moral outrage against the practice.<ref name="Kunzle-2006">{{Cite book |last=Kunzle |first=David |title=Fashion and Fetishism: Corsets, tight lacing, and other forms of body sculpture |publisher=History Press |year=2006 |isbn=0750938099 |language=en}}</ref>

The corset controversy was also closely tied to notions of [[social Darwinism]] and [[eugenics]]. The potential damage to the uterus, ovaries, and fetus was frequently pointed to as a danger to the race; i.e., the [[European peoples|European]] race. Western women were thought to be weaker and more prone to birth complications than the ostensibly more vigorous, healthier, "primitive" races who did not wear corsets. Dress reformers exhorted readers to loosen their corsets, or risk destroying the "civilized" races.<ref name="Summers-2001" />{{Rp|page=135}} On the other hand, those who argued for the importance of corsets cited Darwinism as well, specifically the notion that women were less evolved and thus frailer, in need of the external support of a corset.

The reformers' critique of the corset was one part of a throng of voices clamoring against [[tightlacing]]. Doctors counseled patients against it and [[journalists]] wrote articles condemning the vanity and frivolity of women who would sacrifice their health for the sake of fashion. Although for many, corseting was accepted as necessary for health, propriety, and an upright military-style [[human position|posture]], dress reformers viewed tightlacing, especially at the height of the era of [[Victorian morality]], as a sign of moral indecency.

American women active in the [[abolitionism in the United States|anti-slavery]] and [[temperance movement]]s, with experience in public speaking and political agitation, advocated for and wore sensible clothing that would not restrict their movement, although corsets were a part of their wardrobe.<ref>{{cite web |title=Woman's dress, a question of the day |url=http://www.canadiana.org/view/91023/0011 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120730174714/http://www.canadiana.org/view/91023/0011 |url-status=dead |archive-date=30 July 2012 |access-date=26 March 2012 |work=Early Canadiana Online}}</ref> While supporters of fashionable dress contended that corsets maintained an upright, "good figure", and were a necessary physical structure for a moral and well-ordered society, dress reformers maintained that women's fashions were not only physically detrimental, but "the results of male conspiracy to make women subservient by cultivating them in slave psychology".<ref>Dress and Morality by Aileen Ribeiro, (Homes and Meier Publishers Inc: New York. 1986) p. 134</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Riegel | first1 = Robert E. | year = 1963 | title = Women's Clothes and Women's Right | journal = American Quarterly | volume = 15 | issue = 3 | pages = 390–401 | doi=10.2307/2711370| jstor = 2711370 }}</ref> They believed a change in fashions could change the position of women in society, allowing for greater social mobility, independence from men and marriage, and the ability to work for wages, as well as physical movement and comfort.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Riegel | first1 = Robert E. | year = 1963 | title = Women's Clothes and Women's Right | journal = American Quarterly | volume = 15 | issue = 3 | page = 391 | doi = 10.2307/2711370 | jstor = 2711370 }}</ref>

[[File:Eugène Atget, Boulevard de Strasbourg, Corsets, Paris, 1912.jpg|thumbnail|upright|Eugène Atget, Boulevard de Strasbourg, Corsets, Paris, 1912]]

In 1873, [[Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward]] wrote:

{{Blockquote|Burn up the corsets! ... No, nor do you save the whalebones, you will never need whalebones again.  Make a bonfire of the cruel steels that have lorded it over your thorax and abdomens for so many years and heave a sigh of relief, for your emancipation I assure you, from this moment has begun.<ref>{{cite book|last=Phelps |first=Elizabeth |url=https://archive.org/details/whattowear01phelgoog |title=What to Wear |location=Boston |publisher= Osgood |year=1873|page=[https://archive.org/details/whattowear01phelgoog/page/n86 79]}}</ref>}}

Despite those protests, little changed in fashion and undergarments up to 1900. The majority accepted corsets as necessary on some level, and relatively few advocated for it to be abandoned entirely.<ref name="Steele2" /> The primary result of the dress reform movement was the evolution, rather than elimination, of the corset. Because of the public health outcry surrounding corsets and tightlacing, doctors took it upon themselves to become [[corsetiere]]s. Many doctors helped to fit their patients with corsets to avoid the dangers of ill-fitting corsets, and some doctors even designed corsets themselves. [[Roxey Ann Caplin]] became a widely renowned corset maker, enlisting the help of her husband, a physician, to create corsets which she purported to be more respectful of human anatomy.<ref name="Summers-2001" /> Health corsets and "rational corsets" became popular alternatives to the boned corset. They included features such as wool lining,<ref name="Stevenson-2011">{{Cite book |last=Stevenson |first=NJ |title=The Chronology of Fashion |publisher=The Ivy Press |year=2011 |location=London}}</ref> watch springs as boning, elastic paneling, and other features purported to be less detrimental to one's health.

In the 1890s, [[Inès Gaches-Sarraute]] designed the straight-front corset in response to her patients' gynecological issues which were attributed to wearing corsets. The design was intended to reduce pressure on the abdomen and improve overall health. The new S-curve silhouette created by this design quickly caught on among fashion houses in the early 20th century.<ref name="Libes-2023">{{Cite web |last=Libes |first=Kenna |date=5 February 2023 |title=Inès Gâches-Sarraute and the Straight-Front Corset |url=https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/ines-gaches-sarraute-corset/ |access-date=2023-12-27 |website=Fashion History Timeline}}</ref> The style was worn from 1900 to 1908.<ref name="Steele" />{{rp|144}}

===Early 20th century===
[[File:Corset a membrane abdominale.png|thumb|Diagram of a straight-front corset, 1902]]
[[File:USpatent1232282 1917.gif|thumb|upright|A longline hip-slimming corset, 1917]]

The corset reached its longest length in the early 20th century. At first, the longline corset reached from the bust down to the upper thigh. There was also a style of longline corset that started under the bust, and necessitated the wearing of a brassiere, a style that was meant to complement the new silhouette. It was a boneless style, much closer to a modern [[Girdle (undergarment)|girdle]] than the traditional corset. From 1908 to 1914, the fashionable narrow-hipped and narrow-skirted silhouette necessitated the lengthening of the corset at its lower edge. Meanwhile, as [[bra]]s began to catch on in the 1910s, fewer and fewer corsets included bust support. The fashionable corsets of this period covered the thighs and changed the position of the hips, making the waist appear higher and wider and the hips narrower, forecasting the "flapper" silhouette of the 1920s.<ref name="Libes-2023" />  The new fashion was considered uncomfortable, cumbersome, and required the use of strips of elastic fabric. The development of rubberized [[Elastomer|elastic]] materials in 1911 helped the girdle replace the corset.<ref>Carlisle, Rodney (2004). ''Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries'', p.102. John Wiley & Songs, Inc., New Jersey. {{ISBN|0-471-24410-4}}.</ref>

In 1910, the physician [[Robert Latou Dickinson]] published "Toleration of the corset: Prescribing where one cannot proscribe", in which he investigated the medical effects of corsets, including the displacement and deformation of internal organs. He found that, while some women could wear these garments without apparent harm, the vast majority of users sustained permanent deformations and damage to their health. The purportedly healthier S-line corsets still restricted [[Diaphragmatic breathing|costal breathing]] and exerted pressure downwards on the pelvis.<ref name=Toleration>{{Cite wikisource | title=Toleration of the corset | last =Dickinson | first=Robert L. | year=1910}}</ref>

The longline style was abandoned during World War I, in part to save materials for the war effort. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was a brief revival of the corset in the form of the [[waist cincher]] sometimes called a "waspie". This was used to give the hourglass figure as dictated by [[Christian Dior]]'s "[[Christian Dior SA#The New Look|New Look]]". However, use of the waist cincher was restricted to [[haute couture]], and most women continued to use girdles. Waspies were also met with push-back from women's organizations in the United States, as well as female members of the British Parliament, because corsetry had been forbidden under rationing during [[World War II]].<ref name="Stevenson-2011" /> The revival ended when the New Look gave way to a less dramatically shaped silhouette.

=== Late 20th century ===
By the 1960s, the advent of [[Hippie|hippie culture]] and youth rebellion led the wasp-waisted silhouette to fall out of favor. Feminist activists protested against the restrictive nature of Dior's designs.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tomes |first=Jan |date=10 February 2017 |title=How Christian Dior revolutionized fashion 70 years ago |url=https://www.dw.com/en/the-new-look-how-christian-dior-revolutionized-fashion-70-years-ago/a-37491236 |access-date=2023-12-28 |publisher=[[Deutsche Welle|DW]] |language=en}}</ref> In 1968 at the feminist [[Miss America protest]], protestors symbolically threw a number of feminine products into a "Freedom Trash Can." These included girdles and corsets,<ref>{{cite journal |author=Dow, Bonnie J. |date=Spring 2003 |title=Feminism, Miss America, and Media Mythology |journal=Rhetoric & Public Affairs |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=127–149 |doi=10.1353/rap.2003.0028 |s2cid=143094250}}</ref> which were among items the protestors called "instruments of female torture".<ref>{{cite journal |author=Duffett, Judith |title=WLM vs. Miss America |date=October 1968 |journal=Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement |page=4}}</ref> The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of popular [[fitness culture]], and diet, plastic surgery (modern [[liposuction]] was invented in the mid-1970s), and [[exercise]] became the preferred methods of achieving a thin waist.<ref name="Bass-Krueger-2019">{{Cite web |last=Bass-Krueger |first=Maude |date=2019-04-17 |title=Vogue's fashion encyclopaedia: The history of the corset |url=https://www.vogue.fr/fashion/article/vogues-fashion-encyclopaedia-the-history-of-the-corset |access-date=2023-12-28 |website=Vogue France |language=en}}</ref> The [[sexual revolution]] of the 1960s and 70s brought with it midriff-revealing styles like the [[crop top]], and many women chose to forgo supportive undergarments like girdles or corsets, preferring a more athletic figure.<ref>Bucci, Jessica (7 November 2015). [https://startupfashion.com/fashion-archives-history-crop-top/ "Fashion Archives: A Look at the History of the Crop Top".] Startup Fashion.</ref>

The corset has largely fallen out of mainstream fashion since the 1920s in Europe and North America, replaced by girdles and elastic [[brassiere]]s, but has survived as an article of costume. Originally an item of [[lingerie]], the corset has become a popular item of outerwear in the [[Sexual fetish|fetish]], [[BDSM]], and [[Goth subculture|Goth]] subcultures. In the fetish and BDSM literature, there is often much emphasis on [[tightlacing]], and many corset makers cater to the fetish market.

Outside the fetish community, living history reenactors and historic costume enthusiasts still wear stays and corsets according to their original purpose to give the proper shape to the figure when wearing historic fashions. In this case, the corset is underwear rather than outerwear. Skilled corset makers are available to make reproductions of historic corset shapes or to design new styles.

Since the late 1980s, the corset has experienced periodic revivals, all which have usually originated in haute couture and have occasionally trickled through to mainstream fashion. Fashion designer [[Vivienne Westwood]]'s use of corsets contributed to the push-up bust trend that lasted from the late 1980s throughout the 1990s.<ref name="Stevenson-2011" /> Those revivals focused on the corset as an item of outerwear rather than underwear. The strongest of the revivals was seen in the Autumn 2001 fashion collections and coincided with the release of the film ''[[Moulin Rouge!]]'', in which the costumes featured many corsets as characteristic of the era. Another fashion movement, which has renewed interest in the corset, is the [[steampunk]] subculture that utilizes late-Victorian fashion shapes in new ways. In the early 2020s, corset-inspired tops and dresses began to trend as part of the [[regencycore]] aesthetic, inspired by television series like ''[[Bridgerton]]'' and [[The Gilded Age (TV series)|''The Gilded Age'']]. These designs typically do not incorporate any form of boning.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ilchi |first=Layla |date=2022-04-29 |title=What Is Regencycore? A Look at the Fashion Trend Taking Over This Spring |url=https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/regencycore-fashion-trend-spring-2022-details-breakdown-bridgerton-the-gilded-age-1235169193/ |access-date=2023-12-28 |website=WWD |language=en-US}}</ref>

<gallery widths="150" heights="200">
File:Corset-style tank top 2021.jpg|Corset-style top worn in 2021
File:Corset paris 1902.jpg|A corset from a 1902 French magazine
</gallery>

=== Popular culture ===
Modern historical fiction films and TV shows such as ''[[Bridgerton]]'' have renewed interest in corsets while also drawing attention to potential health risks as actresses including [[Emma Stone]], [[Cara Delevingne]], and [[Simone Ashley]] have complained about discomfort wearing them during the course of their careers.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Newmark |first1=Avery |title=Corset controversy: 'Bridgerton,' historical accuracy and health concerns |url=https://www.ajc.com/pulse/corset-controversy-bridgerton-historical-accuracy-and-health-concerns/JP2EZBPOY5GV7IAT23IQW6I34E/ |access-date=16 June 2024 |date=14 June 2024 |work=[[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]] }}</ref>