Valerie Steele The Corset A Cultural History — Yale University Press New Haven & London |Chases Philipos, Marhende de Cont, Art and Nature Corset Controversies of the Nineteenth Century Ee HISTORIANS HAVE ARGUED THAT the corset was deeply implicated in the nineteenth-century construction of a “submissi feminine ideal.' Indeed, the corset has been described as a “quintessentially “masochistic” Victorian” garment, because of its role in creating and policing middle-class femininity? Although plausible, this thesis is uhimately unconvincing, Men were not responsible for forcing women to wear corsets. On the contrary, a number of powerful male authority figures, including many doctors, opposed corsetry. So did 2 vocal minority of dress reformers of both sexes, who won- dered why the majority of women persisted in wearing corsets. Were they the dupes of cunning dressmakers? Did they actually think that the fashion- able corseted waist was beautiful? “Never has a stone image, consecrated by ‘cunning priests, exercised a more magic influence on a superstitious heathen’ mind than the invisible Fashion Fetish on the modern feminine intellect”* Certainly, women’s reluctance to abandon the corset was closely related to their interest in fashionable dress. But “Fashion” can not logically be reified as a magic power that causes women to behave in ways contraty to their own best interests. Historians have tended to interpret Victorian clothing, especially corsetry, in terms of bourgeois sexual repression.‘ However, recent research demonstrates that Victorian sexual attitudes and behavior were not nearly as prudish as we have assumed? It is true that within che context of nineteenth-century society, the corset played an ambivalent role. In order to be “decently” dressed, women had to wear corsets. The English especially believed that a straitlaced woman was not loose. Yet Victorian women (and by this I mean not only women in Great Britain, but also those in France and the United States) were well aware that the corset also functioned as an adjunct to female sexual beauty. By simultaneously constructing an image of itreproachable propriety and one of blatant sexval allure, the corset allowed women to articulate sexual subjectivity in a socially acceptable way. The corset was also supposed to make women look more “beautiful” by con- cealing physical features that were less than “ideal” The triumph of corsetry occurred not because Victorian women were more oppressed or masochistic than their predecessors, but because the“The Dandy’ Tet 1818, Courtesy of Cora Ginsberg George Cruikshank, Lacing « Dandy, 1819, Courtery of the University Club Library, New York 36 Industrial Revolution and the democratization of fashion gave more women access to corsets. Beauty was now supposed to be every woman's “duty” (or her “right’), by means of artifice if not naturally. The history of the corset from the end of the French Revolution to the First World War is not only about “fashioning the bourgeoisie,” since corsetry, like fashion in general, was rapidly becoming a mass phenomenon.’ Moreover, as the socioeconomic and political structure of society changed, the very concept of sartorial display hitherto associated with the “aristocratic body” became transformed into a ‘feminine” ideal of beauty that potentially applied to women of all classes.” Many elements of aristocratic fashion, such as color and decoration, were increasingly reserved for women’s clothing, A new sartorial code for men developed only gradually, however, and certain’ categories of male clothing, such as military uniforms, retained many aristocratic elements Some men also wore corsets, although this was controversial. Fragmentary evidence indicates that a few military men may have worn stays in the cighteenth century, but the practice seems to have become mote common in the early nineteenth century with the phenomenon of dandyism. ‘Appearing first in Regency England and then migrating to France during the Romantic era, dandyism drew on both bourgeois and aristocratic proto- types! Although dandies were deeply interested in fashion, they were not fops, since their style of dress was characterized by a refined sobriety. It was aso rather body-revealing, The number of dandy caricatures produced between about 1815 and 1820 indicates that at least a conspicuous minority of fashionable men wore stays or corsets, the terms by this point being essentially interchangeable. Nevertheless, the idea of a man wearing stays struck many people as truly ludicrous, especially as it could easily evoke the complementary idea of ‘women in breeches. A caricature entitled The Hen-Pecked Dandy portrays an overweight woman wearing lace-trimmed breeches, while het husband “Sir Fopling” has, ‘in revenge,” taken to wearing stays. The idea that “effeminate” men endangered national strength had been a theme in British popular calture at least from the middle of the eighteenth century, when attacks on fops and macaronies were common in the iconography of politcal carica- ture, Regency dandy caricatures continued this theme, along with its corol- lary, the spread of effeminacy throughout society Lacing in Style ~ of, « Dandy midshipman preparing for attraction!! depicts the protagonist exclaiming “Very well, my hearties very indeed. Pon honor, this lacing is not very agreeable, but it will be fully compensated by the grand dash I shall make at the East London Theatre tonight ~ Oh! I shall be the ‘most enchanting! Oh, charming! Oh, delighiful!” An old sailor nearby comments, “[ say, Master Midshipman, I always thought you a litle crack-brained, now I'm convinced . ..” Still another sailor exclaims, “My eyes!! Oh Murder! Ha!Si daily pull ly Gar! n “poe all Uy Gr Bf youn Litittity aDanthy, aIlsesation of 2 stout man being laced up, om Bera, Le Combiie de naire toms, 2874 8 Hal Hal Jack Greathead the cheesemonger’s son got stays!! Well, ve a good mind to get petticoats! These dandies are a disgrace to Great Britain!"? Yet because corsets support the back (at Jeast in the short run), they were favored by military men, especially cavalry officers, well into the nineteenth century. Dostoevsky’s underground man sarcastically toasted Lieutenant Zverkow with a speech beginning, “I hate phrases, phrasemongers, and men in corsets..." Some civilian men also wore corsets for sports such as horse~ back riding, just as today weightliffers often wear wide leather belts. These corsets were made of sturdy cloth or leather, and only sometimes incorpo- rated whalebone or metal wire. The Workwoman’s Guide, published in London in 1838, notes that “men’s stays or belts... are worn by gentlemen in the army, hunters, or by those using violent exercise?” Stout gentlemen also sometimes wore corsets, both as an aide to dieting and to improve their appearance. The fat and vain Joseph Sedley, a character in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, had tried “every girth, stay, and waistband then invented?” The famous Regency dandy Beau Brummell may not have needed corsets but his “fat friend,” the Prince Regent, might have used them to fit into his fashionable clothes.” The caricaturist George Cruikshank did a number of images of men in corsets. Laceing [sic] « Dandy (c. 1816), for example, shows the protagonist complaining to his servants, “Fore God, ye ‘Wretches, you'll never get my stays tight enough.” One servant then says to the other, “if you don't pull tight, my Lord will have a damn big John Bull belly” Notice, however, that a big belly was, at least potentially, asociated ‘with English cultural nationalism, at least when it was a man who was fat. ‘A fat woman had no such justification, Nor did fat Frenchman, In Balzac’s Cousin Bette, the Baron Hulot adopted a corset when he wanted to seduce Madame Valérie Marneffe. A former soldier of the Imperial army, Hulot was perhaps especially predisposed to wear stays. As Balzac writes: Foresceing the collapse of the Empire beau, Valérie thought it necessary to hasten it “Why do you bother, my own old soldier?” she said to him, six months after their clandestine and doubly adulterous union. ...“Do you want to be unfaithful to me? I should like you so much better if you stopped using your rubber belt, your tight-waistcoat, the dye on your hair...” And so, believing that Madame Marneffe loved him... the Baron... left off wearing his leather waistcoat and his stays; he got rid of all his harness, His stomach sagged; obesity was obvious."* Fashionable menswear continued to emphasize a cinched waist through- cout the 1830, One French dandy of thie Romantic era insisted that “The secret... of dress lies in the thinness and narrowness of the waist. Catechize your tailor about this... Insist, order, menace . .. Shoulders large, the skits ff the coat ample and flowing, the waistline strangled ~ that’s my rule."