The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-01-04
EVOLUTION OF THE CORSET.
Woman's Waist Was Really Discovery
of the Dark Ages.

Woman's Waist Was Really Discovery
of the Dark Ages.
Woman's waist which may be CLASH
fed as variable quantity, marvellous
in its power of manipulation, is real
ly discovery of medieval times, and
not, as popularity believed, gift of the
gods Sappho lived and died in happy
ignorance OF the possession that is at
| once the delight and the despair OF the
modern world feminine. Penelope the
faithful, Aspasia the wise, Iseult the
loving, considered not the importance
of waist curve and circumference.
Brunhild measured not the meters in
her horsehair cestus TO determine
whether they exceeded those which
girdled the other dark-eyed Valkuries,
and Boadicea rallied her Britons with
no thought as TO the circumference of
her corselet of skins. The idea of the
waist came in with the luxury and re-
fnement of the Romans, and when
those old barbaric women grasped the
thought and realized the importance of
their possession straightway they be-
gan doing just what women have been
doing ever since-trying to improve on
the model designed By the Creator-and
the germ of the corset was evolved.
The first trace we find of the busked
corset ''busquine, . is in the ample and
majestic dress of the period of Fran
els l.. the day of splendid stuffs and
wide flowing sleeves lined with sable.
Catherine de Medicis, as might have
ir,S oratal in
Producing corset of steel and velvet.
by means Of which her ladies achieved
an undesirable girth of thirteen inches,
and this corset, in some of its forms,
was worn by the men as well as the
women of the court which followed
hers. Still little later the fashion
able lady was strapped up in rigid
corset strongly armed with whale bone,
which came down in deep point upon
her skirt all of piece and without any
indication of slope.
1t has remained for the modern wom-
an to make of the steel sirdle an orna-
mental device, masking its misery in a
covering of most exquisite brocade o.
lustrous satin, frilling its edges with
fine and beautiful laces, hand wrought
and exquisite, and cIasplng its cruel
steels with gold and jeweled links of
diamonds and rubies AS high as FIVE
and six dollars is paid for certain
cut of seam, shape of gusset made up
in plain gray coutille, and not only
this, but a woman with any pretensions
to fastidiousnesS must have her corset
made to order, and will not wear a
Shop-made article any more than man
of fashion will tolerate store clothes
and ready-made linen. The corset now
must match the silk pettiooat, as won-
en- wear no longer the little under bodice
of linen or cambria, lest it interfere with
the fit of the gown or add hairs
breadth to the size of the waist. The
laces are of silken webbing, bright and
beautiful in color, and the materials in
clude all the brocades, the tartans, the
changea BILE taffetas, the shot silks and
satins in plain tints The prices cover
the ground between S. and $50. 1t re-
mains, too, for the modern man to dis
cover the raison d'etre for the corset,
which has been ever mathematical as
the sign manual of feminine vanity and
frivolity. And this man has said, with
the brutal sarcasm of his kind: '@The
corset is charged with hurting woman
and at times with killing her. But is
this to its discredit? Already there is
an excess of uncorseted shes. War and
travel keep the number of men within
wholesome limits, and perhaps the
great use of the corset is that it does,
less effectually, the same by women"
Chicago Tribune.