CORSET CONCERNS

PAST MANSION EXHIBIT UNCOVERS THE SOMETIMES UNBELIEVABLE HISTORY OF UNDERWEAR.

Wisconsin State Journal; 5/4/2004; Chris Martell Wisconsin State Journal

In the time it took me to shower, dress and drive from Madison to Milwaukee, my great-grandmother Louise would have been just about halfway through her ritual of getting dressed for an ordinary day.

She died before my father was born, but for some reason I've kept her photo in my bathroom all my adult life. She looked like me, and the curls and weird cowlicks I wrestle with every day came from her stream in the gene pool. In Louise's portraits, her curls were pinned neatly into an up-do, and she probably liked them, since Victorians believed women with curly hair had nicer dispositions than their straight-haired sisters.
Below the neck, the resemblance ends. Great-grandma Louise had a voluminous mono-bosom and a waist the size of a dessert plate.

Was she a genetic mutation, or am I?

The purpose of my visit to Milwaukee last week was to check out an exhibit at the Pabst Mansion called "The Underside of Victorians," an exhibit of historic underwear. No one asked to come with me. "Used underwear in a museum? How creepy is that?" seemed to be the consensus.

That any of the antique underwear survived seemed amazing, but I learned from curator Jodi Rich that the world is full of avid antique underwear collectors, and there are many collections at colleges.

Even more amazing is the story the garments tell about how fashion can dominate and limit life, as it did for Victorian women.

It took at least two hours - and help from an assistant - for middle- and upper-class women to get dressed, from putting on seven to 10 pounds of underwear to putting up their hair. The most critical - and controversial - garment was the corset.

Victorian corsets weren't as heinous as when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne, a time when aristocratic women wore steel armor that squashed their torsos from breasts to bottom into narrow cylinders.

But Victorian corsets were still cruel and unusual punishment. They contained about 24 metal or whalebone stays, and laces in back that were tightened to nip at least four inches off the waist by exerting 80 pounds of pressure per square inch on the body.

"Women were competitive about waist size, and there was a preoccupation with having a tiny waist," Rich said. A "handspan waist" of 16 inches was the ideal.

Corsets moved women's organs to places nature hadn't intended, and ribs compressed and permanently altered.

"Little girls started wearing corsets when they were 5, so their bodies weren't allowed to develop normally," Rich said.

Women couldn't bend, or sometimes even sit, and keeled over so often that a special piece of furniture, the "fainting couch," was developed. By the late 19th century there was ongoing debate about the dangers of corsets.

Ditching the corset was not an option for any woman who wanted to be accepted in genteel Victorian society.

"Going without a corset was considered indecent," Rich said. "Even working-class women wore them, but they didn't lace them so tight because they had to move and bend."

Social class was evident by the tautness of a woman's corset, and the S-curve of her silhouette.

Corsets were big business. At World Fairs in Philadelphia in 1873 and Chicago in 1893 there were special rooms devoted to corset innovations, concepts that promised faultless figures, grace and even health. Even in pregnancy, special corsets were worn.

"Victorian women wanted babies, but they did everything they could to hide pregnancy," Rich said.

While corsets took care of immobilizing the torso, other undergarments put a damper on walking, sitting and everything else. Crinolines were cumbersome cages made of steel or stiffened fabric to make skirts bulge out, and bustles, sometimes made of horsehair or metal, were worn in back to make the rear end pouf out.

There also were "bum pads" tied around the waist to add girth to the derriere, and bust enhancer's, garments that could be stuffed with cloth and attached at the cleavage to create the monobosom. Chemises, corset covers, drawers, petticoats and stockings completed the underwear suite, all of which was expected to match the woman's outer dress.

Men had it easier, wearing wool union suits in winter, and silk or satin sleeveless union suits in summer, until the government introduced boxer shorts and T-shirts to the troops in World War I. After boxers, there was no going back to union suits, be they drop- seat or closed crotch.

The end of the war also marked the end of women's imprisonment by underwear. The new "Empire style" called for a straight, flat- chested silhouette and hemlines rose, and women were finally able to get into cars without toppling over.

Back at home after the exhibit, I was getting ready to go to the gym. As I looked for the millionth time at great-grandmother Louise's portrait, I noticed the serene expression on her face. Even with all the horrible underwear business that I now know was going on beneath her dark dress, she looked much calmer than I ever do.

I was tired and wanted nothing more than to flop on the couch and watch TV. For a moment, I envied her being able to slip into a corset and make the problems caused by eating too much plum pudding go away without spending an hour on a treadmill.

I was feeling liberated and a little superior, thinking that I'd never wear such oppressive clothing. And then I thought of the unreasonably high heels in my closet that, if they don't send me lurching down a flight of stairs, will certainly do their best to rearrange the bones in my feet.