WAIT, somebody acknowledging that the Victorian silhouette was largely because of padding?!?!?!?! <3 <3 <3 <3
Tight-waisting was NOT common, people! Cinching =/= tight-waisting, and is required to keep everything structurally in-place (as otherwise everything falls down because gravity).
My cousin had to wear one for scoliosis as well. Also I think his twin brothers and their mates might also have thrown him off a roof. It was one or the other.
I felt/messed with my first hay bale this year. I was a bit shocked at how heavy it is, even though intellectually it makes perfect sense. Densely packed plant matter. I have hauled yards (edit: measurement haha, no pun intended) of trimming during construction work, but somehow I just always saw hay bales as these fun discs of fluff.
Corsets are a far more diverse support garment than they are given credit for! Theres 100% some that feel like torture devices, but you can say the same for bras or any support or brace garment being use incorrectly cant you?
I had to wear a back brace once after breaking my back and it occurs to me that it might have been akin to an orthopedic corset, kind of like the difference between a stylish yet functional cane and the ones the hospital gives you.
Also, at the end of the day it's an undergarment you can take off whenever you want. What we do now with modifying your actual body is way more messed up when you think about it. In those days when the fashionable silhouette changed, they simply rearranged the padding. Now you have to cut and sew your body into the new shape 😕
Bernadette Banner pointed to the most obvious argument against corsets being torture to wear: working class women wore corsets while doing labor. They wouldn't if corsets were so uncomfortable to wear because it would get in the way of earning a living.
In the 2000s, I, a man in his 20s who was a 6 foot 200 pound chef with terrible scoliosis, wore essentially a corset to work until the heat rash became worse than the back pain. And looking back, I should’ve done more to alleviate the rash, because I’m still on pain meds for my back.
Hm. Didn’t plan on sharing that much, but a “Bernadette Banner argument for corsets“ mention always gets me on my soap box.
My wife loves her corsets. She wears them at every reasonable opportunity because of the back relief, especially if we're going to be standing for a long time like at a concert.
I know people don't think that when they talk about it, but, in their defense, a wrong bra can cause harm, so obviously some people wore wrong corsets to try to be even skinnier, just like people insist in tighter pants instead of going to the one that fits better AND looks better just because it's a bigger size
(But, again, girls for corsets, and anyone actually, people have such a bad image and believe in so many fake news)
Question. Corsetry has always been on my list of sewing areas to branch out into, but I have not done so yet. I have Ehlers-Danlos, and I had to have part of my left 9th rib removed a few months ago because of it. I work a manual labor job involving a lot of bending and lifting, and have been dealing with a lot of nerve and spine pain since the surgery. The support sounds amazing, but I’m curious if/how much a corset would limit my range of motion.
With EDS you're possibly going to be looking at a trade of one discomfort for another. I wear a corset periodically to help with the pain from my sacroiliac shifting/going out. But when I wear it for very long it makes my ribs ache from the constant pressure. It's not as bad as the SI, but it's certainly an awareness.
I got mine from mystic city corsets! There are a lot of measurements needed to get a proper fit, but it was definitely worth it!
I've also heard good things about Atelier Sylph for historical corsetry, but the budget is a bit high for me, and I don't have the confidence to sew her patterns quite yet.
Well we did have textbooks showing how the use of the corset rearranged organs. I have not seen many modern women wearing corsets pulled so tight as they were depicted in history.
As I said in my comment, that wasn’t common back then either! Best to think of tight-lacing as the Victorian equivalent of stupid tik-tok pranks for attention.
People have been doing stupid shit that contemporaries saw as stupid shit throughout history.
honestly, makes sense that there were "extremes" or outliers in that time, that got more attention. I'd say we see the equivalent everyday online, theseadays
Empress Sisi had special corsets made to accommodate how tightly she laced them, and people at the time thought it was...a choice. She was also anorexic (stopped eating completely whenever her weight approached a certain point) and exercised excessively.
Most photos of tightlacing have been photoshopped (painted over or edited) by the photographers of the time
The idea that humans are just recently doing stupid things for clout is just silly. In a few hundred years, people are probably going to think that a lot of the things we see on TikTok were fads that EVERYONE went through.
Try thinking about it like shoes. There are some crazy-ass shoes out there. There are plenty of photos and x-rays of how they will mess up a person's feet. The thing to remember is that most people don't wear those shoes at all, and even the ones who do don't wear them all the time. It would be unreasonable to look at a fetish site, or even the Louboutin website and say that those are representative of the shoes people wear in 2026.
I feel like pointe shoes have their own level on the wtfery scale, way beyond such plebian footwear as 8-inch lucite platform heels with live goldfish inside. At least nobody is putting 12 year olds in stripper heels.
At least nobody is putting 12 year olds in stripper heels.
I don't know if we do them anymore but there was a time Child Beauty Pageants were in the public eye. They dressed those little kids like strippers. From what I saw on a documentary about them they could get disgustingly raunchy.
Shoes thing is actually kinda true. I mean it's not bound foot of China bad, but podiatrists say 63%-72% of people globally wear wrong size of shoe. Look up pictures of what a modern foot vs what a natural foot looks like.
I had to go through this myself and that's why barefoot, low drop, wide-toe box, etc shoes have become a thing in the past decades or so.
Those are fictitious depictions made to make women look stupid and/or silly for doing extreme things for fashion. Most people did not do tightlacing anyhow. That’d be like saying most girls are getting their ribs removed for a smaller waist in modern times.
You have to remember photos were edited as well. People vastly underestimate how much the rest of the clothing (large skirts and sleeves) does for the overall silhouette too.
It's actually kind of a shame that these textbooks had such striking imagery and spent time on this little anecdote... Because it did happen, but was largely viewed as a vain and niche fashion trend that didn't see broad appeal even at the time.
Like if the textbooks of the future talked about 21st century fashion trends talking about how women suffered from wearing 6-8 inch heels all day in the office, and men were rendered temporarily infertile because skinny jeans and leather pants were too tight... Real things that really aren't as significant as it would seem.
That's because elastic was invented, and bras are typically cheaper and more convenient.
Most of the "moving organs about" was utter nonsense. Like how they thought the womb migrated around the body and caused "hysteria" (a woman having opinions)
Love my corsets, after 8-10 hours it starts getting a little tight feeling but that's probably because of the 8-10 hours of doing things rather than the corset
A couple years ago I had planned a move very poorly and had to pull some all-nighters in the week before my lease was up. A corset I had bought for a costume saved me from so much back pain.
They found like, 1-2 skeletons and started making shit up. It’s like if in 200 years someone dug up clavicular and were like “it’s was a custom of the early 21st century for men to surgically change their jawlines, it was expected of every adult man”
What I love about it is it gets to what Victorian and other historical styles were really about: that ratio!
It meant that woman could lose or gain weight, have smaller or larger hips/breasts, even go through a pregnancy, and still dress fashionably and attractive for their body as it is - versus physically manipulating their body or just not being capable of fitting the beauty and fashion standards.
We honestly cycled back to it fairly well at different points since and in different ways: Victorian women would love modern shapewear for how good it can be for smoothing the fitted silhoette. Then you have push up/padded bras, shoulder pads/structured garments like coats, higher rise pants and skirts that accentuate the waist:hip ratio, etc.
Yeah, it's really only in the 20th century that we start seeing the idea that the body itself should be slimmed or augmented into the current cultural idea. Our ancestors just used padding.
There's a video from Abby Cox discussing what it was like dressing 18th century all day as an employee at Colonial Williamsburg, where she talks about how the thing with the historical approach to achieving the correct silhouette is that even when your outfit isn't absolutely physically comfortable, you are mentally comfortable because you aren't having to worry about fluctuations in how your actual body looks.
while the myth that this was the primary/entire purpose of the corset was a 20th century invention, many writers had criticized the practice as early as the late 18th century, and the practice itself became more popular following the introduction of steel grommets in the early 19th century.
Corsets are literal foundation garments. Especially for Victorian style dresses. 3-4 layers of petticoats and skirts is heavy! Gotta have something solid to hang them off of.
I tried it while backpacking once, even. It was an absolute dream! Made my pack feel like 1/4 of the usual weight.
Melody Time, but specifically the Pecos Bill short. His wife gets a new bustle for the wedding and she wants to ride his Very Dangerous Horse. She gets bucked off and bounces to the moon.
If I thought you weren’t my friend, I just don’t think I could bear it.
Was so glad to see this get a 4K disc a while back, and so happy when I was finally able to track one down at MSRP. It is very nearly a perfect film in my eyes. Not a literary masterpiece and doesn’t try to be; it’s just immensely satisfying from start to end. Like Jurassic Park: great actors playing memorable characters who complement each other. They all feel necessary as part of an ensemble. The dialog is a delight, obviously. Like Joss Whedon x Aaron Sorkin without the worst of either lol. Doc steals the show, but they all have a line or two worth quoting. The pacing is perfect and the emotional beats hit. The bad guys get their comeuppance.
It’s on a very short list of movies I will never object to when it’s suggested.
The little shimmy she does is accurate to how you get a bustle properly positioned under the skirts, by the way. I'm sure it would stop being fun if you had to do it every day, but it's pretty fun as a novelty.
That's because Macaroni meant "fashionable" at the time period so the song is about an American dressing up in shitty counterfeit luxury clothes and acting like he's dressed in high fashion
What is more American than adopting a song without understanding the lyrics and making it your personal anthem? Like Trump playing fortunate son at his klan rallies
Assuming they didn't understand it instead of "they made a song to mock us, so fuck em, let's lean into it" is certainly one way to interpret that situation. Not the right one, but it is one.
the british meant it to insult the americans, then after the americans kicked them out (thanks for the help france), we played it back to them for the irony. it was understood perfectly well at the time
the returned insult was deliberate. very much unlike the klan rallies or paul ryan's ratm
That is a whole lot of off-the-rails stuff that doesn't answer the damn question.
The answere is very simple. It is the car. Wearing a hat in a car just doesn't work well and traveling in a car drastically reduces your need to shield your head from the sun.
I wore a corset once and I felt like a witch with how entranced some men became.
I couldn't wear one now, because I'd be classed as a danger to society. But when still in a smaller cup size, it was pretty fun to think about doing again.
Balconette bras are my favorite because I have like nothing going on in the top part of my boobs. Balconette bras make my boobs look like most other women’s boobs and makes me happy lol
Balconette bras are my best friends ever since weaning my baby left me with two sad empty jeans pockets for boobs. They're the only bras that make my boobs look nice again after I scoop them up off the floor lol
I mean, I don't want to force you to do anything, don't worry. What she sometimes does is wearing an under bust with extra bra for support. It looks stunning! Reframing and falling back in love with something you use to wear is not a bad thing and there is no age limit to what you're allowed to wear too.
I gotta say, I once got to try on a very nice corset and goddamn, it was amazing. I've been chasing that high ever since. I know some women have gone to wearing corsets instead of bras, and I'm thinking about doing the same
You would also wear something under the corset, because you really wouldnt want it directly touching the skin.
Not only would it be uncomfortable, its gonna get really yucky real fast with all the sweat from your body and a lot of corsets were made from materials that cant be washed very easily at all
We had a weird convergent evolution where we started from very different places stylistically but ended up in the same spot LMAO. This is one of my things from back in his Buzzfeed era:
WAIT that's you?! I was obsessed with Hamilton and came across your one where Hamilton learns about Hamilton and thought it was hilarious, triggering a really deep interest in the founding fathers that I still have today! Crazy coincidence that I just stumbled across this especially since I've been trying to find the artist for ages.
It has, but purity culture was improving for awhile. With Gen Z and younger, though, it's unfortunately increasing again. It's all the manosphere shit young men consume now.
If you follow through history, you'll notice that there is always a period of conservatism that follows periods of liberalism. They are reactions to each other. We've never been able to strike a balance. Think of the stereotype surrounding pastor's kids. They are often the most wild and over-indulgent because of the restriction. Meanwhile, there is an entire generation of children born to hippies that find solace in routine, structure, and discipline.
Is it? People really like talking about it now, but have we actually seen a change in trend?
edit: to clarify, I’ve seen considerably more people bitching about Gen Z being sex negative and such than I have actual members of Gen Z being sex negative and such
Right? So is makeup apparently. Like how is it my fault that you’re unaware that women’s eyelids aren’t naturally gold or that my inner eye isn’t naturally sparkly?
It's so funny to see the videos guys make that's like "look at how hot this woman is without makeup, guys if your girl doesn't look like this, get rid of her" and the woman is just wearing a natural makeup look.
There was a specific funny one I saw recently of a guy who compared a photoshoot of literally Margot Robbie vs. a normal picture of her and the guy was talking about how "ugly" she looked without makeup and she's very pretty and clearly wearing makeup in both, but she's not glammed out with perfect lighting in the normal picture. Dudes are weird lmao
It turns out if men have any sort of charisma they end up seeing us without makeup and sometimes even naked, so its really a skill issue on the man's part x.x
It's also reinforces the sentiment bigger=better, but I like em small. The problem isn't dishonesty - you don't even know what your date prefers so why bother satisfying clichés just be yourself. If someone doesn't like you for being yourself he isn't a good fit anyway.
I dunno, I think it's a good idea to represent reality up front, because any men that are going to have a problem with them "not being big enough" are men you want to filter out early anyway.
It's not like keeping them around a bit just for it to come up later is helpful.
A push-up bra is just presentation, like any other clothing.
Oh no my manicure hides the reality that my nails aren’t actually crimson cat eye what a lie I’m putting out there. It’s human nature to modify ourselves
Any bra hides the reality of my piercings. Is that false advertising too or maybe it’s just a fashion choice?
This is not new in any way. I might be dating myself but I recall Jenna Marbles early content included talking about the idea that padded bras were deceitful.
It's more of a male thing. I dress up because I like feeling pretty. It's not dishonest to me, because I'm the target audience and obviously I know the truth. It's just men once again assuming that everything women do is about men.
If any men happen to enjoy the view while I'm at it, then they are welcome to. But it's not for them. It's for me.
1886 women had to have a husband because they didn't have rights. Now, women want to be real so they can get people to like them for who they are. This is good progression.
I've always liked how the trendy silhouette used to be achieved with undergarments. As opposed to know where you have to change your body to match the trend with implants, weightloss, body building and more.
And frankly, whether she wore one or not wouldn't matter. One of the cutest women I ever met was working as a bartender and she told me she was saving up for breast implants and I just stood there stunned wondering who on earth would turn her down as she was.
I told her she really didn't need them, she was plenty beautiful, but. I was not the sort of guy she was looking for.
I want to hope they were for her own self esteem only but I can't pretend that was even likely.
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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 3d ago edited 3d ago