![]() In the 1970s, Vivienne Westwood began using corsets as part of her historicist punk aesthetic imagining her corsets to empower women rather than bind them. ![]() ![]() The letters, descriptions, and images that describe this practice may have represented sexual fantasies, she says, rather than descriptions of authentic experiences. ![]() Steele also argues that examples of tight lacing, or the practice of fastening corsets to create the smallest possible waist, cannot be taken at face value. It may have caused fainting and lowered vitality, though. Fashion historians Valerie Steele and Colleen Gau have argued that while corseted women may indeed have suffered from depleted lung volume and changes in breathing patterns, this would not necessarily have led to respiratory diseases. Some doctors blamed the corset for respiratory diseases, deformity to the ribs, damage to internal organs, birth defects, and miscarriages, while others approved of “moderate” or “health” corsets that were less rigid and helped support the body. Available in a wide variety of price points, corsets were worn by upper and middle-class women and, increasingly, by working-class women as well. Rexĭiscussions about the corset being detrimental to women’s health came to a head in the 19th century, when the popularity of the corset was at its peak. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |