What Does a Corset Maker Do?

Compared with the underwear which was called "devil clothes" (home clothes) in ancient times, modern corsets have made significant progress from flat to three-dimensional structures, from cover and restraint to revealing and caring. Prior to the Renaissance, the corset was just a piece of embroidered cloth or a few feet of white coriander wrapped around the chest, so that the curve of the chest disappeared under the blouse.

Corset

Synonym: tunic.

Corset

Before the 16th century

People on thin waist

As Chinese women wrap their feet tighter and tighter, why do Western women confine themselves to that

Corset Roundup

A key shape factor that distinguishes a man from a woman is that the woman has an hourglass-like figure, which is all due to the woman's slender waist. This slenderness is partly due to the contrast of adjacent parts, above the waist of women

It is a plump chest, and a wide hip below the waist, suitable for child rearing, but even if there is no contrast between the two, we still have to admit that women's waists are indeed thinner and more slender than men's waists Already.

The simplest and most common way to reflect whether a person's waist is slim is to calculate the "waist-to-hip ratio". For adult women, the waist-to-hip ratio that best meets aesthetic requirements is 7:10, while for men, this ratio It's 9:10. It is worth noting that the difference between women's and men's waist-to-hip ratio is a very strong existence, which basically does not change with changes in social culture. No matter in a society where fat is beautiful, or a society that advocates "skinnyness", men's waists are always stronger and stronger than women. This characteristic of the human body has a long history and very basic utility.

The following will start from the three aspects of ethics, health and morals, and try to objectively comment on the corset.

Corset ethics

Among those who strongly oppose women tightening their waists are both pious Puritans and those who advocate for hedonism. In the seventeenth century, the Puritans were the leaders who led this boycott. They clearly stated that any attempt to change the natural appearance of women was an offense to God. In an article published in 1654, John Bulwer once strongly condemned those "dangerous fashions and desperate attempts to change the waist." He believed that tight corsets aimed at tightening the waist and highlighting the chest were one. This kind of "damaging power is beyond imagination, should not be", he said to those who "tighten their waist tightly, want to make it into a thin stick, incapable of embracing themselves with their own hands Women who never believed that their waists were thin enough before waist slimming "issued a terrible warning, noting that if women ignored his warnings," soon they would open the door to lung disease, with rancid gasps forever Sinking. "

In the early years, tight corsets had a very important role in helping wearers to have aristocratic behavior. Those young women who tied their waists tightly were forced to accept a stiff standing posture. This straight standing posture made them look like they had the luxurious temperament of "inheritance and independence", because in the corset Under strong pressure, women are unable to make lazy postures, and they cannot stay loose. In order to make women wearing corsets better maintain a straight standing position, a special device is placed in front of the corset, which is a long, flat bone. The existence of it makes women more and more necessary to maintain it. Nervous body posture. It is said that when encountering some faint admirers and trying to cut off female clothes to invade their bodies, the girls can also extract this long bone as a self-defense weapon, which is also brought by it. An added bonus. Compared with those who wear corsets, women who do not wear it are very luxurious in terms of body posture. They can pose without any restraints and make themselves comfortable, so they will be referred to in English as "scattered" woman".

There is another totally different voice against women's use of corsets. Those who advocate this view are women who seek self-liberation in modern society. For them, wearing any kind of clothing that restricts the natural human body is against women. The blasphemy of freedom is not only a physical limitation of women's freedom, but also a symbol of the spiritual shackles that men impose on women. From this perspective, tight corsets are actually a tool to torture women and one of the means by which men show their dominance.

If a happy modern woman wants to dance on the dance floor and fully demonstrate her sexy charm, then she certainly cannot tolerate any form of physical restraint; if she wants to embody the principle of equality between men and women when flirting with a male partner, and Not blindly obeying each other, then she needs to be disarmed and physically flexible like her male partner. For modern happy women, if she desires a slender waist, she will go to the gym to achieve the goal through physical exercises, such as jogging or other healthy exercises, instead of simply and rudely seeking the help of tight corsets, in order to harvest men Our admiration, she will change all clothing that is not conducive to sports, and actively and healthily engage in exercise.

Smart women also demand physical freedom, but their starting points are completely different. For these women, what they want most is to divert the attention of men, so that the latter should not pay too much attention to whether their bodies are sexy or not, but pay more attention to the wisdom of their minds. If she wants to attract the attention of a male companion, she will definitely use her wisdom instead of the ability to have children, so any attempt to change her body shape is something she is not willing to do.

Corset healthy

In contrast, other remarks are not fierce, but they have also warned women that excessive tightening of the waist must lead to various complications. Possible symptoms mentioned in the speeches of various factions include headaches, coma, hernias, liver damage, abortion, dyspnea, blocked blood circulation and so on. Also listed. A Victorian writer once made a list of 97 conditions and threatened that all of them were caused by women's blind pursuit of thin waists.

All these health warnings are actually unnecessary most of the time, because most young women are careful when wearing tight corsets, they will not tie themselves too tightly, and they will not last for a long time. it. Obviously, tightening the waist too tightly restricts the respiratory and circulatory systems, causing headaches, coma, and shortness of breath. If you stretch for too long, it will weaken the back muscles, and you will often feel it when the tight corset is lifted. backache. But with limited use and moderate elasticity when worn, it can display charming slim waists on various special occasions without causing undue physical damage. This is the principle pursued by most women. The scary story tells a completely different picture.

Corset morals

First of all, many people have publicly determined that strict restrictions on the waist are a reflection of the virtue of self-discipline, and a symbol of the ability of the person with the waist to exercise self-restraint. It is also based on this view that the past participle of the word "tighten with tie" is redefined in English as "strict", "stubborn" or "precise".

The second view is that a tight waist means more moral and behavioral respect, because the tight clothing makes the hidden part of the female body more difficult to reach. She is actually self-armed to resist men. Excessive attention. Her slender waist may make men feel tempted, but because of the existence of tight-fitting corsets, belts and other straps, coupled with complicated strapping methods, it is naturally more difficult to get her bare body.

Corset conclusion

It is generally believed that slender waist limbs with a waist circumference of only 38 to 41 cm were once common. They were achieved by imposing restraints from an early age, and constantly tightening the waist during adolescence and adulthood. of.

The cartoons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often depict the scene where women's waists are tightly tightened and almost thinned into a line, but after recent academic investigations, people have reached different conclusions.

The first blow to traditional knowledge appeared in 1949. After careful study of early clothing, it was found that the smallest waist that can be found in a large number of modern clothing is also 61 cm; in 2001, a meticulous and meticulous special project Research confirms this again. In clothing left over from the eighteenth century, the smallest waistline also reached 61 cm, but in the nineteenth century, the situation began to become extreme. The invention of the metal ring made tighter binding a reality. , Women's minimum waist circumference has been reduced to 46 cm. In the Victorian era, where waistline winds prevailed, women's waists were mostly between 46 cm and 76 cm.

Although the above data do not prove that extremely thin female waist limbs do not exist, they are sufficient to prove to us that such thin waists must be extremely isolated and not a general social existence. In the history of modern society, there has been an extreme example. According to the Guinness Book of Records, a British woman living in the twentieth century has achieved amazing achievements. This lady was in 1929 She already has a slim waist of 56 cm. When she was 34 years old after 10 years, her waist was shrunk to a shocking 33 cm. Since then, she has lived healthy for 43 years. The use of human organs to achieve the purpose of slim waist did not cause too much harm, at least it was not reflected in her body. But it is important that we treat this as a special case that violates universal principles, and it does not represent the mainstream of society. Many women want to have a slim waist, because that is a very important and transmissive signal, but they will definitely not go so far on the road of slim waist, otherwise they will break the scale they should have, Seriously disrupted the balance of life. In the early years, very few women who pursued a thin waist did go too far, just as there are very few such women in modern society, but for the vast majority of women, this weird radical behavior is their We will never try, so we will conclude that the motive behind these extreme behaviors is the most difficult mystery in fashion history.