"
Queen Elizabeth had these listed in her garderobe:
"A payre of bodies of black cloth of silver with little skirts (1571),
a pair of bodies of sweete lether (1579), a pair of bodies of black
velvet lined with canvas stiffened with buckeram (1583), for altering
a pair of bodies...the bodies lined with sackecloth and buckram about
the skirts with bents covered with fustian, a pair of french bodies of
damaske lined with sackcloth, with whales bone to them (1597)"
Victorian women were described by contemporaries as maintaining a 43
centimeters waistline with the aid of whalebone corsets. But period
advertisements for corsets cater to waistlines of up to 107
centimeters with an average of 76 centimeters. Wearing a tight corset
did constrain blood flow and cause fainting - but there was no
shortage of corsets of all sizes.
Corsets dominated fashion between 1555 and 1908 when the first flowing
gowns to be worn without a the constraining undergarment were
designed. Another twenty years passed before the corset was relegated
to history.
http://www.corset.dk/
http://costume.dm.net/
Crossword Puzzle
The image of the quintessential British gentleman, stoically solving a
crossword puzzle while on a train voyage - is etched in our minds.
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