Corset Tidbits

A Toast

from a 1905 postcard

Here's to the girl
with painted lips
peroxide hair
and padded hips
wasp-like waist
and a nerve sublime
art beats nature
every time!

The Lay of The Lacer

Don't lace me lighter, sister dear;

I never had supposed,

That it would give me so much pain

"My dear they're not near closed."

Then I must get a larger pair

To clasp my clumsy waist,

Of this I'm sure, I cannot bear

To feel myself tight-laced.

Oh, the misery of tight-lacing

None but have tried can tell;

I'm sure that as to figure,

I cannot be a belle.

The pain, say you, it will not last?

Well! I will try again;

Lace me up tightly, sister dear,

I'll try and bear the pain.

Do lace me tighter, sister dear,

I never had supposed

It would give me such pleasure.

"My dear, the corset's closed."

Then I must go and get a smaller pair

To clasp my slender waist

Full well you know I cannot bearm

To fell I'm not tight-laced.

Oh, the pleasure of tight-lacing,

I that have tried, can tell;

Besides that, as to the figure,

I fell I'm quite a belle.

This is the teaching of my lay,

Lace tightly while you can;

Be sure you'll soon forget the pain

You feel when you began.

16 inches

You must try and lace me tighter, lace me tighter, mother dear;

My waist, you know is nearly half the size it was last year;

I will not faint again, mother, I care not what they say,

Oh! It's sixteen inches today, mother, it's sixteen inches today.

There's many a wee, wee waist they say, but none so wee as mine;

I'm five-foot-fove-and-a-half in height, my inches fotry-nine;

Last year my waist was-Oh! It's a size I'd be afraid to say,

But it's sixteen inches today, mother, it's sixteen inches today.

You must lace me tight tonight, mother, I must try and keep this size,

I know the doctors tell you it is dangerous-unwise,

And they call me vain and foolish, but I care not what they say,

For it's sixteen inches today, mother, it's sixteen inches today.

I stay so quiet all day, mother, afraid the cords might burst,

I can breathe quite freely now, though it hurt me so at first;

At first it hurt me very much, now I'm happy and gay

For it's sixteen inches today, mother, it's sixteen inches today.

You remember the first month, mother, what agony I bore,

But I went through it without flinching; the corsets that I wore

measured seven-and-twenty inches; Oh I care not what they say,

For it's sixteen inches today, mother, it's sixteen inches today.

My Mistress's Boots

Frederic Locker-Lampson

She has dancing eyes and ruby lips,

delightful boots - amd away she skips.

They nearly strike my dumb,-

I tremble when they come

Pit-a-pat:

This palpatation means

These boots are Geraldine's-

Think of that!

O, where did hunter win

So delicate a skin

For her feet?

You lucky little kid,

You perished, so you did,

For me sweet.

The faery stiching gleams

On the sides and in the seams,

And reveals

That pixies were the wags

I dreamed a dream one day,

that my waist was laced this way

And now I tug and fight,

And feel the laces bite...

My dream is coming true, I pray;

Strange, how wonderful I feel to day!

Beauty and Fashion

Then of late, you're so fickle that few people mind you;

For my part, I can never tell where to find you;

Now drest in a cap, now naked in none,

now loose in a mob, now close in a Joan;

Without handkerchief now, and buried in a ruff,

Now plain as a quaker, now all of a puff;

Now a shape in neat stays, now a slattern in jumps,

Now high in French heels, now low in your pumps;

Now monstr'ous in a hoop, now trapish, and walking

With your petticoats clung to your heels, like a maulkin;

Like the cock on the tower, that shews you the weather,

You are hardly the same for two days together.

1899

The thought of the discomfort, restraint and pain, which we had to endure from our clothes, makes me even angrier now than it did thenl for in those days nearly everyone accepted their inconveniences as inevitable. Expect for the most small-waisted, naturally dumb-bell shaped females, the ladies never seemed at ease, or even quite if they were wearing their own clothes. For their dresses were always made too tight, and the bodices wrinkled laterally from the strain; and the stays showd in a sharp ledge across the middles of their backs. And in spite of whalebone, they were apt to buldge below the waist in front, for, poor dears, they were but human after all, and they had to expand somewhere. How my heart went out to a fat French lady we met once in a train, who said she was going into the country for a holiday 'pour prendre mes aises sans corset'... We did rebel against stays. Margaret says that the first time she was put into them- when she was about thirteen- she ran round and round the nursery screaming with rage. I did not do that. I simply went and took the off; endured sullenly the row which ensued, when my soft-shelled condition was discovered l was forcibly re-corseted; and, as soon as possible went away and took them off again... I had a bad figure, and to me they were real instruments of torture; they prevented me from breathing, and dug deep holes into my softer parts on every side, I am sure no hair-shirt could have been worse to me...

Once I asked Aunt Etty what it had been like to wear a crinoline. "Oh it was delightful!" she said. "I've never been so comfortable since they went out. It kept your petticoats away from your legs and made walking so light and easy."