![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Fortunately, progress in women's emancipation resulted in the demise of corsetry at the beginning of the twentieth century. ![]() Many women supposedly "tight-laced," achieving waist measurements of less than eighteen inches, thereby crushing their ribs and internal organs. Historians argue that especially during the Victorian era, corsetry functioned as a coercive apparatus through which patriarchal society controlled women and exploited their sexuality. Today the corset is almost universally condemned as having been an instrument of women's oppression. Yet throughout its history, the corset was widely perceived as an "instrument of torture" and a major cause of ill health and even death. Worn by women throughout the western world from the late Renaissance into the twentieth century, the corset was an essential element of fashionable dress for about 400 years. The corset is probably the most controversial garment in the entire history of fashion. All rights reserved.Ĭontents Acknowledgments.viġ Steel and Whalebone: Fashioning the Aristocratic Body.1Ģ Art and Nature: Corset Controversies of the NineteenthĬentury.35ģ Dressed to Kill: The Medical Consequences of Corsetry.67Ĥ Fashion and Fetishism: The Votaries of Tight-Lacing.87ĥ The Satin Corset: An Erotic Iconography.113Ħ The Hard Body: A Muscular Corset.143 By Valerie Steele Yale University Press Copyright © 2001 Valerie Steele. ![]()
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