The New Line 1900

Colmer: Whalebone to See Through

At the end of the 19th century a new straight front busk was introduced, supposedly on anatomical grounds. This would have been all right if the laces had been loosened, but women continued to lace their corsets as tightly as before, and the new straight busk pushed the waist forward and the hips back, producing a gross distortion of the figure.

The illustrations at right and below, from the start of the 20th century, demonstrate the idealised version of the line these corsets were intended to produce.

Straight front corset, 1903

Steele: The Corset, A Cultural History P84

Notice that although the corset on the left is still producing the fashionable sway back, it is starting to creep down over the hips

The Gibson Girl

Mark Gabor The Pinup p46

In 1887 Charles Dana Gibson (then 20 years of age) joined Life magazine.  As a young man, he had "tipped his pen in the cosmic urge and tried to draw a girl so alluring that other young men would want to climb into the picture and sit beside her." (1).
By 1900 the ‘Gibson Girl’ had come to symbolise the ideal of American womanhood, and his drawings immortalised -- and promoted -- the exaggerated 'S' shaped fashionable figure of the early 1900s.

Rust-Proof Corsets

Colmer: Whalebone to See Through

For most of the 19th century, women had accentuated the slimness of their waists by emphasising, and often exaggerating, the fullness of their hips. However fashion never stands still, and in 1907 Paul Poiret, a rising young Paris couturier, introduced a slim, up-and-down fashion line to replace the 'S' shaped figure, and it's plethora of elaborate undergarments.

Poiret supposedly banished the corset, but as his straight slim figure became fashionable corsets began to extend down over the hips, as in the advertisement on the left. By 1909 they had stretched down so far that walking -- and even sitting -- would appear to have become almost impossible.

The first brassiere , 1914

Ewing: Fashion in underwear P86

Although every effort was made to slim the hips the bosom was often emphasised, and the bust bodice, which supported the breasts and enhanced the bosom, remained very popular. Until this time there had never been any attempt to separate or reshape the breasts, but about 1907 the first version of the brassiere, with separate cups for the breasts, was introduced.  The name is thought to be the result of someone with little knowledge of French looking for a name with a continental flavour, as the French word actually referred to a knapsack or harness.

 

Machinist in munitions factory 1916

Fontanel: Support and Seduction p90

When war broke out in 1914, fashion was put on hold.  But as more and more young men went to their deaths on the battlefields, industry faced a serious shortage of manpower to operate the machines to make the munitions for the armies.  Although many women were desperate to do something to help in the war effort the authorities were at first reluctant to make use of their labours, but as the situation became more desperate women began to take over more and more jobs which were formerly considered to be "man's work".
Corsets were hard to get, and although there were arguments that the support they gave was essential to enable women to do the hard work they were being asked to perform, many women found that they got in the way, and that they could do their jobs more readily with lighter corsets, or even without any corsets at all.
Prior to the war there had been relatively few respectable jobs for women, and after the war many women were reluctant to give up the new-found freedom provided by their jobs, to make way for the returning soldiers.  Even worse, so many young men had been killed on the battlefields that there was a serious shortage of eligible men, and many young women had to accept that they were never going to be able to marry and take up the role of a housewife.
Perhaps because of this shortage of men, after the war fashions became decidedly masculine.


1. Fairfax Downey, Portrait of an Era as Drawn by C. D. Gibson: a biography (New York and London: Scribner, 1936), p184.

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