PRICE OF BEAUTY
Really TORTURE before World War 2
Once upon a time in a country far away in a time without air conditioning, pantyhose and mass transit, women wore body corsets. I had no idea why they did but they did. As a small boy I remember a woman, known as a corsetiere, coming to my house to measure mother for a new corset. I also remember corsets hanging on the line drying after being washed and they were ugly to see and they were even worse to wear, I was sure. Mother wasn’t fat; she was mother. Boys don’t compare mothers, only fathers.
Corsets were made out of a very tight woven skin-color material that was held together by thousands of little hook and eyes in the back. About every three inches a stave, called whalebone, was sewn in from top to bottom to make it even stiffer. It probably was real whalebone in those days. Around the bottom of the garment were elastic ribbons hang-me-downs with stocking hooks attached to hold up silk stockings. A full bra was included in this instrument of torture.
All the mommas I knew wore corsets. A body hug by those mommas could break a small boy’s bones and take the skin off your cheeks if you were squashed into a bone stave. It was a little like hugging a knight in armor without the iron gloves. Some of the mommas had rolls of chub pushed out the top that made it impossible to get their arms down by their sides so they always had their arms in front with hands held to push the chub roll to the back. A little like a basketball under each arm.
I never saw anyone getting into one of those monsters and even now I can’t picture how it was accomplished. Surely it required a very strong person to hook it all up under such extreme tension caused by applying a small garment to a larger person.
Summer heat waves were the test for survival of the fittest. Those were the days when women fainted with regularity, and smelling salts were in everyone’s medicine chest and purses. On those hot days, Mother would come home from work on a hot bus after a hot days work in a hot temporary building located on Independence Avenue in DC. Mother was exhausted to the point of being sick. The first thing she did was to go directly to the bedroom and take off that girdle. She would have a full body rash that itched and she was miserable. She took a cool bath and then put powder on the rash to prepare for a repeat the next hot day. All summer long women put on that body armor and ventured out into the heat of the day to suffer just to look thinner than they were. Even Englishmen and dogs didn’t go out in the noonday sun on a hot day.
One of the benefits of World War 2 was the end of girdles.
“Rosie the Riveter” couldn’t wear a girdle on the assembly line. When those mommas would lean over or stretch, the chub would be pulled out from under the girdle and never go back on its own. (You think your life is hard?)
The rubber used in making girdles went to the war effort. I have given it a lot of thought, and my conclusion is that the corset garment industry made parachutes out of that tightly woven material. I do remember mother was happy not to wear a corset again. The silk stockings went to war also. No stockings and no girdles equaled bigger size dresses all around.
The next garment of torture, with the advent of nylons after World War 2, was the garter belt and panty girdle to hold them up. The belt was very simple. It consisted of a thin waist belt with the elastic hang-me-downs and clips at the ten, two and six o’clock possessions on each leg to hold the stockings in place. The panty girdle was a wide band made from a rubberized parachute material with the hang-me-downs (no staves or hook and loops) that they stepped into and pulled up to cover the hips to the waist. A friendly pat on the bottom could fracture your fingers or even a whole hand! For those too young to remember, panty hose are a new invention and they did away with the need for hang-me-downs.
I check out all the newest Victoria's Secret catalogs to see if any of the above-described garments have made a comeback. To my delight, they haven’t (as of the last catalog). They do advertise a skimpy corset-type thing in black lace, but I am sure it's not intended for street wear.
I will keep checking with Victoria and keep you posted. No reason for you to bother.
Once upon a time in a country far away in a time without air conditioning, pantyhose and mass transit, women wore body corsets. I had no idea why they did but they did. As a small boy I remember a woman, known as a corsetiere, coming to my house to measure mother for a new corset. I also remember corsets hanging on the line drying after being washed and they were ugly to see and they were even worse to wear, I was sure. Mother wasn’t fat; she was mother. Boys don’t compare mothers, only fathers.
Corsets were made out of a very tight woven skin-color material that was held together by thousands of little hook and eyes in the back. About every three inches a stave, called whalebone, was sewn in from top to bottom to make it even stiffer. It probably was real whalebone in those days. Around the bottom of the garment were elastic ribbons hang-me-downs with stocking hooks attached to hold up silk stockings. A full bra was included in this instrument of torture.
All the mommas I knew wore corsets. A body hug by those mommas could break a small boy’s bones and take the skin off your cheeks if you were squashed into a bone stave. It was a little like hugging a knight in armor without the iron gloves. Some of the mommas had rolls of chub pushed out the top that made it impossible to get their arms down by their sides so they always had their arms in front with hands held to push the chub roll to the back. A little like a basketball under each arm.
I never saw anyone getting into one of those monsters and even now I can’t picture how it was accomplished. Surely it required a very strong person to hook it all up under such extreme tension caused by applying a small garment to a larger person.
Summer heat waves were the test for survival of the fittest. Those were the days when women fainted with regularity, and smelling salts were in everyone’s medicine chest and purses. On those hot days, Mother would come home from work on a hot bus after a hot days work in a hot temporary building located on Independence Avenue in DC. Mother was exhausted to the point of being sick. The first thing she did was to go directly to the bedroom and take off that girdle. She would have a full body rash that itched and she was miserable. She took a cool bath and then put powder on the rash to prepare for a repeat the next hot day. All summer long women put on that body armor and ventured out into the heat of the day to suffer just to look thinner than they were. Even Englishmen and dogs didn’t go out in the noonday sun on a hot day.
One of the benefits of World War 2 was the end of girdles.
“Rosie the Riveter” couldn’t wear a girdle on the assembly line. When those mommas would lean over or stretch, the chub would be pulled out from under the girdle and never go back on its own. (You think your life is hard?)
The rubber used in making girdles went to the war effort. I have given it a lot of thought, and my conclusion is that the corset garment industry made parachutes out of that tightly woven material. I do remember mother was happy not to wear a corset again. The silk stockings went to war also. No stockings and no girdles equaled bigger size dresses all around.
The next garment of torture, with the advent of nylons after World War 2, was the garter belt and panty girdle to hold them up. The belt was very simple. It consisted of a thin waist belt with the elastic hang-me-downs and clips at the ten, two and six o’clock possessions on each leg to hold the stockings in place. The panty girdle was a wide band made from a rubberized parachute material with the hang-me-downs (no staves or hook and loops) that they stepped into and pulled up to cover the hips to the waist. A friendly pat on the bottom could fracture your fingers or even a whole hand! For those too young to remember, panty hose are a new invention and they did away with the need for hang-me-downs.
I check out all the newest Victoria's Secret catalogs to see if any of the above-described garments have made a comeback. To my delight, they haven’t (as of the last catalog). They do advertise a skimpy corset-type thing in black lace, but I am sure it's not intended for street wear.
I will keep checking with Victoria and keep you posted. No reason for you to bother.
posted by JackSML | 9:02 PM
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