The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-05-08
SHAPING THE FIGURE.
POINTS ABOUT THE USE AND
HISTORY OF CORSETS.

|
A Purpose That 1t Cannot be Dis
Densed With-Radical PecuIiarities
of Form.
(Copyri0ht.l
NEW YORK, May There are few
things more calculated to exasperate an ele-
CANT and shapely woman than the alto.
gether senseless and ignorant demands for
the abolition of the corset. These demands
are almost invariably formulated either by
men whose knowledge about us is of a ma
ture more theoretical than practical, or
else by women whose lamentable absence
OF what is propularly termed figure in,
vests them with far greater moral and
physical analogy to the masculine than the
feminine. Neither the men nor yet the
women to whom 1 have just alluded, are in
any way qualified to discuss the subject
Having, as the French would say, no "bois
devant la maison"-- which, translated means
mo wood piles stacked in front of houses')
they are unable to realize that even the
most perfectly formed woman requires a
| certain amount of artificial support for the
bust. And if the latter is well-shaped and
generous 10 its proportions the continued
| absence or this SUPPORT imposes too heavy a
causes them TO relax. Especially is this the
! case in civilized countries where women
are 80 much more active than In
the Orient. In the Eastern harems
| and zenanas, tine inmates of which
take little or no exercise and spend their
entire day longing on divans and cushions,
there is no need Of any artificial assistance
for the bust, since there is no undue strain
OF the muscles. But among the western ma
tions, where women drive, ride, walk, boat
and play lawn tennis, beside being restless
ness unprecedented, 1t is indispensably in or
der to preserve the normal beauty of the
female form divine" that there should
be some kind Of protection and support.
The latter need not necessarily take the
shape of a corset. Nor do l wish it to be
inferred from this letter that l confine my
advocacy to any particular mode or fashion
OF stays The main thing is that they
should support the bust.
Men are wont to rave about the ''clas-
| steal beauty of form" of the woman of
| ancient Greece and Rome, and to compare
1t to that OF the civilized woman of TODAY
to the disadvantage Of the latter. They
use this comparison as the basis Of their
argument that corSets are both Injurious
and unnecessary. Neither the Venus Of
Milo nor yet the Venus di Medici ever wore
stays" they declare.
This only demonstrates their presumption
lRUOTbuCb. V 6QUB DTODaDlY re-
moved her corset when she sas for her por-
trait-in marble-and while there are no
statues of her in existence, definitely prov
ing that her figure was assisted yet there
are any number of ancient pieces of sculp-
sure depicting Roman ladies of the classical
ages wearing the cingulum or broad jew
eled band Immediately beneath the bust,
and evidently. intended to suppost 1t. In
Greece the "cingulum" was known as the
''strophium." Homer speaks of it in his
llliad, describing the siege of Troy
and the beauty OF Helen, while
in the Paris Louvre there is very antiqu Q
statuette, found during the excavations at
the Acropolis at Athens, representing girl
in the act Of putting on broad supporting
strophium. If, therefore, the women of
ancient Greece and Rome possessed beauti-
ful fGures-and men are so fond of extole-
ing their perfection Of form beyond that of
the fair sex of to-day-it is clearly attribu-
table TO the fact that they adopted methods
almost identical with those in use by their
sisters Of the nineteenth century for the
protection and support of their bust.
The corset of to-day, which men are so
fond Of describing as modern outrage on
health and symmetry" possesses far more
analogy with the strophium of Helen of
Troy and with the cingulum Of Lucretia
than any of the terrible monstrosities worn
by our unfortunate ancestors during the
fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. A Flemish lady's corset
in the sixteenth century was a stupendous
affair, garnished with iron, compared with
| which the modern straight waistcoat used
| in lunatic asylums must be a comfortable
teagown.
Nor were the corsets worn by the great
| French ladies at the court of King Louis
XIV. and King Louis XIV. much better
1 and there are but few women to-day who
ha xVilIi linz 20 Y1h
as must have been borne by Nine. de
Maintenon, the Marqnise de Pompadour
and Nine. Du Barry when imprisoned in
| their STAYS
| 1t is only within the last fifty years that
| corsets have been made to follow the lines
of the figure. Formerly the figure was
| forced to adapt itself to the shape of the
corset and much suffering resulted there.
from. For Just in the same way that there
| are no two human faces exactly alike just
| in the same manner are there no two
women's figures that are fashioned on the
same lines. Consequently each girl, each
| woman should have corsets, If not specially
made, at any rate specially arranged to
| adapt themselves to her form. Otherwise
| they are calculated to do her more harm
than good, and to interfere later with the
grace both OF her carriage and of her walk.
With regard to the latter, l wonder how il
is that none of the numerous teaohS
| ers OF department does not adopt
the Oriental method of teaching young girls
| how to walk. There is no more graceful
walk Ia the world than that of the Egyptian
peasant woman. 1t is stately, poetical, and
one might almost add rhythmioal, with
| something of a gliding and undulating
| character. This result is achieved by
accustoming the young girls from their
early childhood to walk with jars of water
balanced on their head. In order to pre-
| serve the equilibrium of these jars, the
| girls are forced to hold their head erect,
their shoulders back. their bust well for
ward, their whole body straight, aud to
permit nothing to interfere with the bar
| mony of their motion.
| In conclusion | would add one more
reason why. corsets are never likely TO be
altogether abolished, no matter how ener-
| getic the crusade organized against them.
| There are always some unfortunate menu
| bers Of our sex TO whom nature has been
less generous than others, with regard to
the shape of the figure. Fortunately it is
| now possible to REMEDY neglect of this
| kind BY artificial means But
| the latter would be unavailable
| without the corset, which constitutes
the basis and foundation of the entire
artificial fabric. / have hesitated for a
moment before writing this, fearing that it
I might be regarded as au act of treachery
| But my fears on that score have been
| quickly dspelled by the firm conviction
| that every one of NV fair readers has been