"Eyes speak no more, heart feel no fear for she can see all."

Would you like to ‘rant’ at Madame Webb? Contact me at: madamewebb@rogers.com

Rant Archive

WEEKLY RANT!

So, our world has been turned upside down by Bush Jr. Guess he just wanted to continue ‘Daddy’s war’. But this is a subject that I will not broach upon. Shall we move on to the real plague of our world, CORSETS!!!

It seems that every time I contact my designer friend Sandra, she is always cutting corsets. Every time!!! And now this creative disease has fallen on another friend of mine. Why would anyone want to create something that you would have to devote 100 hours or more of yourself to make? For people to want to where a piece that crushes their insides and technically deforms the body. Such torture to bestow on oneself!

In early times women partook in strenuous activities and needed to have support garments for their torso and breasts. The bible even mentions about girdles in the chapter Isaiah. The Grecian people used to call the ‘corset’ a zona.

Over the years corsets went from support function to forming societies obsession with the ‘hour glass figure’. It became a common practice to suffer for fashion.

As garments were becoming more ornate for men as a way to show their status in society so did the women’s. The waist size was a big factor in showing a woman was ‘of the court’. As all fashion came out of Italy and France, Catherine de Medici influenced the French court that women should be regularly constraining themselves. This new fashion quickly spread throughout Europe.

Corsets were made from the finest silks, damasks and even metal. But the biggest corset explosion was in the 19th century.

First, it was one of Napoleon’s doctors who created the eyelet, thus the wearer could pull the corset tighter without fear of damaging the material. As whale boning became sparse and expensive the steal boning became more popular. Children were put into corsets as soon as possible to give them straight posture. Needless to say this was creating havoc on the body, especially for women. Women often didn’t survive childbirth as their bones and internal organs were being stretched out after years of being confined. Society pushed onto the masses that women were frail and weak. This was because of the corset. It often cut of circulation causing fainting and the inability to walk or manoeuvre properly. In the late 1800s the Gibson Girl look became popular and the emphases for the corset was taken off the waist and made longer. The idea was to cinch in the breasts and hips to make the clothes look proper. And as the designers were steering away from custom fitted clothing to mass produce items, one used the corset to fit into clothes that were readily available. As the 1920’s approached and fashion was about ‘airy clothing and freedom’, the corset was altered for comfort.

The mentality of fashion over function still exists today. We replaced the corset to change the body with dieting. The idea of clothes defining our status has now been turned onto our bodies. Skin colour went from the royalty of paleness to it being a sign of illness. The examples are endless. The modern age became one of equality. Masters were performing duties of servants and women were taking on responsibilities that men would have. The need for the corset was quickly forgotten. It has slowly been coming back within sub cultures. The corset is one of the staple fashion pieces for the fetish and Gothic scene. There have been some organizations and Societies created to uphold the tradition of corseting. It is a long forgotten art that one often wonders if it is worth reviving. The countless hours of work that is put into them, the years of training your body to get the perfect shape you want or to hide small imperfections. It is a personal decision – ahh the crazy things we do to look good!

Madame Webb