A History of Corsetry
By around 1820 the better-off woman was wearing a heavily boned (whalebone) corset tightly laced at the back, with specially shaped cups for the breasts. It was not until the mass production techniques of the Victorians enabled corsets to be made by machine, rather than by hand, that the grasually reducing prices enabled the majority of women to willingly imprison their bodies in rigid corsets.
It was not unreasonably suggested that these unforgiving and physically limiting corsets were simply another attempt by men to keep women helplessly imprisoned at home (and in constant danger of fainting), but most mothers seemed quite happy to lace up their young daughters as tightly as possible into these body disciplining contraptions that would eventually ensure they had the obligatory 14 inch waist - not to mention an extraordinary lack of mobility and probably constant indigestion!
It was not really until the First World War that any dramatic change came about in the idea of women encasing themselves in what had by now become steel rather than whalebone reinforced corsets. For now, not only was the steel needed for the war effort but also the women were needed to work in the factories - something they could not be expected to do in constricting corsets.
Related categories: Crossdressing Desires, Boned and Laced Corsets and Clinchers, Haute Couture Corsets
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