[Jerry Seinfeld}
I don’t wanna be a pirate!
[/Jerry Seinfeld]
I hate to be the voice of dissention here, but I’ll have to take a pass on the corset. I enjoy the ability to take a deep breath too much. 
To properly wear my '50s dresses, I ought to wear a girdle, but I never do. My favorite corset-type thing is the 18th century “stays.” Shaping and support without squeezing the body into horribly unnatural S-curves!
KCSuze-if a corset is worn properly, it shouldn’t EVER prevent one from taking a deep breath. It should just feel like a nice, warm hug.
I do have two retro-esque style dresses. One is a 1930s look, it’s black with big green and blue flowers on it, with short fluttery sleeves and a high-low hemline. Very slinky.
The other is a black silky sheath with an over lay of silver lace. VERY 1920s. Both are semi-formal, though.
I want to make a regency gown and pelisse soooo bad.
In 1940s Britain, we had Utility clothing. Cloth was rationed, and the amount of cloth that could be used in a garment was regulated. Women’s skirts could only be slightly flared, and wasteful pleats were banned. Jackets could only have three buttons. Cuffs could not have turn-backs. The CC41 (Clothing Control 41) label was used on approved clothing designed by the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, which included Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies.
You probably know all this, being a clothing buff, but I thought it would be interesting for folk to think about the Utility regulations that the Brits lived under during WWII rationing.
Which means when they jitterbugged in the UK, they really came to grief (and provided quite a show for the boys!).
Carnaby Street (c 1966), Mary Quant, and Twiggy for me, thank you! Dave Davies in his dandy phase…
cheers,
Ms Boods
Actually, I did not know that. Thank you!
Right, Osbie, I’ll tell him. He’s single.
Um. Hmm. Do you have a problem with your guy occasionally wearing a lot of makeup and vinyl pants? He’s also Mennonite. Is that okay? 
If so, email me and I’ll set you two up. He’ll probably be over here tomorrow sometime.
Ooooh. Shows what I know about corsets. :smack: Thanks, Guin!
Now, I have a question. I went on a tour of the St. Louis History Museum a few years ago. The guide told us kids that the corsets of the Victorian era were blamed for internal organs shifting in the abdominal cavity, along with miscarriages. Is that true or was she shining us on?
What yummy thread! Thanks, Eve. But brace yourself. I wear cloches. If you kind of squint your eyes and throw your vision out of focus, I do look a little like an aging Clara Bow.
I also have the bob to go with it. (It started out as an Amelie)Now it is much shorter in the back than in front and comes out over my cheecks. The cloches you linked to are god-awful. Now be fair. Think Mia Farrow in
Gatsby. (I admit that my minimizer needs another minimizer though.)
My favorite period forever will be late Victorian and Edwardian – But only in a Worth gown:
http://www.mcny.org/Collections/costume/worth/worth.htm
Eve, I can easily see you in a bias cut 1930’s evening dress ala Kay Francis.
Besides cloche hats, I have a few vintage things – my grandmother’s petticoats and corset. The corset hangs in a room I call the Colette Shrine. I’m sure she was one of the first to free herself of it.
For men, I like any period as long as it includes Harris or Donegal tweed three- piece suits with watch pockets for country weekends, of course.
I could so easily go over the line and right into costuming, I’m afraid.
Well, I’m more Edna Mae Oliver than Clara Bow,** Zoe**, so cloches are not my style.
As for corsets, KCSuze, they have gotten a bum rap. Anna Held—famous for her tiny waist—said her corset only took her waist in one inch; I have skirts that do that! Of course, there were women who abused corsets, just as there are women who over-diet today. And remember, the fashion drawings of the time were hugely exaggerated and the photos often retouched to make waists look tinier. If you look at everyday snapshots, you can see that 90% of women used corsets for shape and support—which is actually good for the spine and the organs, as you can’t slouch in them!
So, corsets—worn intelligently and not too tight—were certainly not harmful. But like anything else, they could be (and sometimes were) abused.
For the most part, they didn’t, and you didn’t start out just going down ten inches! Starting at puberty, a young girl would begin “waist training”-and gradually you could go smaller and smaller.
The ones that DID compress the internal organs, were, as I said, the notorious S curve corsets. But the majority did not.
So yeah, Scarlett O’Hara with her “seventeen inch” waist was inaccurate, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve seen pictures of seventeen inch waist gowns and they’re hideously out of proportion.
What was more restrictive was the actual costume all put together. When you had a cage crinoline plus a corset, your pettiocoats, chemise and then your gown, it did get to be cumbersome.
Eve, are you going to make me look for my video of Little Women? I can’t remember what Edna Mae Oliver looks like. But I have seen your photograph and I know whom you are more commonly compared with. You are right. Neither you nor Cher should wear a cloche! You are much too smoldering…
I have been thoroughly educated. Thanks for clearing up my misconceptions!
20s and 30s for me.
The Edwardians were divine.
Also love Elizabethan fashion, although it looks mighty uncomfortable!