Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Table for one, Monsieur Magritte?
just for the record, THIS is not a corset:
This is a fancy and expensive sports bra. I guess some come with ribbons down the front to look like froofy corset laces for those into bows and stuff. Those pinkish lines indicate where some plastic reinforcement (or boning) goes - it's plain white plastic, usually, kind of flexible - more flexible than the average underwire in a bra -the kind I'm thinking of has similar properties as those white plastic cable-tie style riot handcuffs you sometimes see police carry into seething angry mobs of the violent unwashed. If you're the sort of girl who likes to exercise but feels distractingly floppy while clocking your 6.8 minute mile in what amounts to a spandex bandaid, I can see where such a garment could be an answer to your prayer, as long as the boning didn't work itself out of its channel and jab you to death. (for what it's worth, I am a distractingly floppy girl -- or is it woman-of-flop -- and this is the sort of garment I might consider if I ever determined to shift my ample ass off the sofa and run again.)
Now THIS is a corset:
It is probably worth mentioning that E.J. Swartwout was a lady, according to the US Patent Office. It is also probably worth mentioning that Miss Emma Swartwout's modifications to the type of corset commonly used in the 1890s were likely considered a great improvement in corset technology, offering unprecedented freedom of movement and ease of wear over such canvas-and-spring-steel lace-up straitjackets as were available previously.
Before we complain about that wispy little camisole up there (woven entirely of children's tears thanks to the fine folks at Nike), it may be useful to consider that our foremothers waged all out war amongst themselves during the late 19th and early 20th centuries over their undergarments - there was a "hygenic dress" (? correct me if I'm wrong on the name) movement, tittilating whispers of tight-lacing cults in girls' boarding schools, class issues, race issues, health issues, that rib-removal thing -
god damn but if the more things change, the more they stay the same...
just for the record, THIS is not a corset:
This is a fancy and expensive sports bra. I guess some come with ribbons down the front to look like froofy corset laces for those into bows and stuff. Those pinkish lines indicate where some plastic reinforcement (or boning) goes - it's plain white plastic, usually, kind of flexible - more flexible than the average underwire in a bra -the kind I'm thinking of has similar properties as those white plastic cable-tie style riot handcuffs you sometimes see police carry into seething angry mobs of the violent unwashed. If you're the sort of girl who likes to exercise but feels distractingly floppy while clocking your 6.8 minute mile in what amounts to a spandex bandaid, I can see where such a garment could be an answer to your prayer, as long as the boning didn't work itself out of its channel and jab you to death. (for what it's worth, I am a distractingly floppy girl -- or is it woman-of-flop -- and this is the sort of garment I might consider if I ever determined to shift my ample ass off the sofa and run again.)
Now THIS is a corset:
It is probably worth mentioning that E.J. Swartwout was a lady, according to the US Patent Office. It is also probably worth mentioning that Miss Emma Swartwout's modifications to the type of corset commonly used in the 1890s were likely considered a great improvement in corset technology, offering unprecedented freedom of movement and ease of wear over such canvas-and-spring-steel lace-up straitjackets as were available previously.
Before we complain about that wispy little camisole up there (woven entirely of children's tears thanks to the fine folks at Nike), it may be useful to consider that our foremothers waged all out war amongst themselves during the late 19th and early 20th centuries over their undergarments - there was a "hygenic dress" (? correct me if I'm wrong on the name) movement, tittilating whispers of tight-lacing cults in girls' boarding schools, class issues, race issues, health issues, that rib-removal thing -
god damn but if the more things change, the more they stay the same...
# posted by antiprincess @ 5:23 AM 
Comments:
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it did seem like some of the criticism was conflating the dislike we're allowed/supposed to have for this item for taking the form of a woman-constricting, patriarchy-loving garment...and the reaction we might have based on the actual properties of the sporset (or whatever the real name is).
a lot of folk seemed to know that you couldn't even breathe in it, or even move at all, yet i don't know i saw anyone say they'd tried it.
Of course, it still looks like crap in that it's deliberately paying homage to picture number two, without nearly enough irony being involved to make it funny.
a lot of folk seemed to know that you couldn't even breathe in it, or even move at all, yet i don't know i saw anyone say they'd tried it.
Of course, it still looks like crap in that it's deliberately paying homage to picture number two, without nearly enough irony being involved to make it funny.
Oh is THAT the thing everybody's got their panties in a wad about? Give me a freaking break. How unremarkable.
I guess picture #1 is just a variety of sporset, not even the sort of sporset everyone is discussing - I think the Twisty sporset is adjustable somehow in the waist? I don't even know.
I'm not nearly as much of a clothing historian as I should be. But I have worn accurate recreations of antebellum undergarments (a corset of the style worn in the US in 1840, to be precise, as part of my job as a tour guide at a history museum). Although I definitely wouldn't want to run a marathon while wearing one, neither did I shrivel up and die.
I'm not nearly as much of a clothing historian as I should be. But I have worn accurate recreations of antebellum undergarments (a corset of the style worn in the US in 1840, to be precise, as part of my job as a tour guide at a history museum). Although I definitely wouldn't want to run a marathon while wearing one, neither did I shrivel up and die.
it's amazing however to think that women fed babies, cleaned the house, cooked the food, went to the market, nursed the sick, helped the poor and got the vote - all while strangling to death in their underwear.
just sayin'.
just sayin'.
heh, i just ordered a black leather and, yes, metal corset on line for a fetish masquerade ball...sooo very bad of me...but I won't be playing tennis in it, that I can promise!
lol RenEV...in a former life I had a kinda cheesy leather corset (courtesy of...oh where did we get that? stormy leather?) and a totally bee-YOU-tee-ful custom-made green brocade one. the green one made me feel pretty (a rare occurrence, believe me), if slightly dizzy occasionally. I was sorry to leave it behind.
My reaction to corsets these days is almost always a longing regret at how crap I'd look in one.
(Sigh. In my heart, I'm a Frank; by temperament, I'm a Riff; Nature, alas, made me an Eddie.)
(Sigh. In my heart, I'm a Frank; by temperament, I'm a Riff; Nature, alas, made me an Eddie.)
I'm getting the, "Has this woman ever tried to jog with enormous tits?!" vibe from this.
Me too. Running is fucking PAINFUL for me.
Me too. Running is fucking PAINFUL for me.
glad you dug it, b/l.
hey, I've been trying to read your blog (the UBUNTU post referenced at Belledame's) but I get nothing but a blank page. is something up?
hey, I've been trying to read your blog (the UBUNTU post referenced at Belledame's) but I get nothing but a blank page. is something up?
the crazy thing about corsets is that they evolved from an undergarment known as "stays", which prior to the 1600s gave women a sort of cylindrical shape, like a pillar or column. but I don't know whether a woman or a man invented stays in the first place. I can't imagine it being cool for a man of the 1500s to be overly interested in women's undergarments in any context. I guess I'd really have to know a lot about how men and women related to each other in that time.
better do my homework.
better do my homework.
yeah, I do love that bit, you know, that what everyone's all got their sensible non-patriarchal panties in a bunch over is the SYMBOLISM of the thing, and that it might make some woman uncomfortable, you know, some OTHER woman on account of NO ONE IS EXACTLY HOLDING A DAMN GUN TO THEIR HEAD AND MAKING THEM BUY THE FUCKING THING, ARE THEY,
but BUT apparently everything ELSE made by Nike is, what, okay-dokey? not nearly as important? take out the pretty-pretty laces and the "boning" and we've got nothing to say? what, the exploited woman and kiddie labor here is barely worth a mention because it doesn't have any SEX in it?
oh, listen, the dinner bell.
BONNNNNGGGGGGGG
but BUT apparently everything ELSE made by Nike is, what, okay-dokey? not nearly as important? take out the pretty-pretty laces and the "boning" and we've got nothing to say? what, the exploited woman and kiddie labor here is barely worth a mention because it doesn't have any SEX in it?
oh, listen, the dinner bell.
BONNNNNGGGGGGGG
what, the exploited woman and kiddie labor here is barely worth a mention because it doesn't have any SEX in it?
Sex is easier and more fun to talk about.
of course, it's kind of a new and innovative definition of "fun" here lately...
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Sex is easier and more fun to talk about.
of course, it's kind of a new and innovative definition of "fun" here lately...
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