Unused from Corset Controversy
editThe Chicago Tribune described the issue [1]
- There is no doubt (says Appletons' Journal) but that a "small waist" is admined by all men and all women. No matter how the physiologists or the physicians may talk, women always have compressed their waist and expanded their skirts, and they alwyas will until public opionion pronounces for a heavy figure. In has never induced a fashionable woman to hear that the Venus de Medici [sic] had a large waist; she has been told so ever since that faultless image of female beauty was disinterred. She merely shrugs her shoulders and draws her laces tighter.
- She knows very well that, if she went to a ball with that figure of Venue, no man would ask her to dance. So important a matter is it to have a small waist that it has become a matter of pride to the Austrian people, and is often mentioned in the Court jurnals, that the Empress of Austria is celebrated for posessing a waist which only measures 16 inches.
- Willett, C. and Cunnington, Phillis, The History of Underclothes, London 1951.
A letter to The Times of London expanded on the point The Times, Sept 26, 1883, "Letter to the Editor"
- Sir, -- In your amusing comments on the discussion now going on in the The Times on the dress reform of women you observe "All the authorities ae gareed unpon the evils of tight'lacing". I have always been much amused whenever the subjsct has been aired in my presence at the strange way peopoe igore the point upon whihc the whole thing turns -- vis, Why have women persisted for generations in wearing an instrument of torture (theoretically) condemed by the wiseom of the ages.