Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-08-15
MEN WHO WEAR CORSETS.
VERY PRETTY ONES, TOO, AND
THEY COST $40 OR MORE.
How to Tell When . Man Has One On.
Is Man More Proud Of His Shape Than
Woman?-It Is Difficult to Find Where
the Expensive Shapers Are Made.

Woman?-It Is Difficult to Find Where
the Expensive Shapers Are Made.
There is in one of the corset manufactures
of New York little blonde haired woman
who hasfor many years made a Speciality OF
mems corsets, and has established an extern
sive business in a western city. She had
man trained to take the measures and tit the
corsets, and frequently she or her forewonan
never saw the customers for whom they
made corsets regularly. 1t is very paying
business, for men rarely question the price
of an article they wish to purchase, and
mems corsets are always made to order and
never kept In stock a woman the shape Of
tub and a woman the shape OF broomsuck
will buy the same make Of corsets in different
sizes, and somehow fit herself into them; but
if man wants corset at all he wants it to
fit, and the cheapest ones made to order
cost $40
They do not differ materially from wom-
ans corset in construction, being made of the
same material, only with heavier bones and
stronger steels They differ very materially
in shape, however, being shorter and nearly
straight up and down, though the constant
wearing Of tn corsets conduces to add full
ness Of chest, which compensates for the
pretty bust curve and slope to womans
waist. They are usually made of gray sateen
or coutil, but occasionally very fastidious
customer is found who orders the daintiest Of
materials and decorations
REGULAR BEAUTIES.
One Of the lady's customers always wore
satin corsets Of delicate color, tossed and
laced with silk. He was very stout, and
broke great many Of the silk laces, which
woman will wear almost year without
breaking. One Of his latest orders is a Nile
green satin corset tossed and laced with car
dinal silk, and trimmed at the top and bot
tom with fine white lace, for which he paid
S25 with no dernur.
Another customer was SO extremely modest
that he never went into the store, but his
wife took his measure and ordered the cor
sets, fitting them on herself when they
were finished 1t requires three visits to in
sure a perfect fitting corset-one for the
measure, which is taken very carefully; one
for the fitting, when only half the bones are
in and the steels basted in place, and one for
the final examination, when everything is
finished. After one perfectly fitting corset
has been made, however, only one fitting is
required.
Corsets are worn most by actors, the fit of
whose garments furnishes at present a large
proportion Of their stock in trade. Then
there are clerks who sit bending over desks
all day and half the night, to whom corsets
are frequently recommended by their ply
sicians as help toward Strengthening their
curved spines, men who from some injury or
physical imperfections are obliged to wear
them, and fair percentage Of dudes who re-
joice in small waist and smoothly fitting
coat An ambitious cutter in one of the
swell establishments, where suit Of clothes
may be purchased for the price of brown
stone block has an idea of winning an heiress
for his wife at some popular summer resort
where he spends his vacations, and accord
ingly arrays himself in all the elegance the
establishment affords, hooks himself into a
double boned corset, and lays siege to the
hearts of the fair ones Before he adopted
the corset he buckled broad belt of heavy
leather about his body at the waist, but as he
grew stout this expedient lost its efficacy.
A mans corsets are as readily detected by
his fellow men as the faintest touch Of rouge
on q woman's face is always discovered by
her sister woman. Gentlemen say that man
in corsets goes up stairs like a woman and
walks differently, and that if you observe
him closely for few minutes he will give
little peculiar hitch to bis shoulders, as if he
were endeavoring to pull himself up out of
the corsets. 1t was By watching Berry Wall
mount flight of stairs that it was fully de-
termined that he was laced into a snugly
fitting corset. His wife accompanied him,
and they made the same motions in the ascent.
Both the king dude and his rolly poly little
chum wore corsets regularly on important
occasions. It was at Nine. Griswald's on
Broadway that the pink haired dude returned
q pair Of baby blue satin corsets trimmed
with lace, after they had been fitted three
times to have them made half an inch
smaller, and his anxious perplexity was very
amusing to the mischievous merry maiden
who fitted them on.
THE PRINCE WEARS THEM.
1t is no secret that Osmond Tearle wore
corsets, and that Kyrle Bellew wears them
still The noble Antony has them made In
London in little shop in Conduit street.
They are not trimmed with pink lace or en-
bellished with embroidery, which is the only
surprising thing about them, but they are
deliciously small and very short, not moro
than six or eight inches up and down.
In the same shop the Duke of Beaufort has
the pink satin, lace edged corsets, which he
makes no secret Of wearing, manufactured
end embroidered with his monogram sur
mounted by ducal coronet. He is an old,
decrepit man, with a wrinkled yellow face
and a fringe of white whiskers, and SO bent
over with age that the line of his corsets is
plainly discerniblo through his dress coat.
1t is said that the Prince Of Wales affects
them, too, and that that is why he has aban-
doned horseback riding. Corsets are worn
quite extensively by men in Paris, and al
the handsome officers in the German army
wear corsets under their uniforms
Though corsets are worn by men in New
York. it is extremely difficult to find out
where they are made. There is no special
mandatory for them, and though most OF
the first class corset places receive orders for
them occasionally, they are very reticent on
the subject, for any publicity given to the
fact would destroy the business altogether.
There is one bright woman corset maker on
Fourteenth street who advertises to make q
speciality of mems corsets and receives
great many orders, which she fills simply by
taking womeu's corsets of large size and re-
moving the cores in the bust and taking out
some Of the fullness at the hips Merchant
tailors would hail with delight the general use
of c,-srss as they would render the fitting Of