Today I have, what I think, are the most gorgeous pages of corsets I have ever seen in an Edwardian magazine. These are both from a copy of The Delineator I have in my archives from September, 1905.
Not only are corsets beautiful, but the page layouts are gorgeous and they include great descriptions of the corsets, and what figure types they are suited for.
“No, 1 is a plain little corset designed especially to soften the angles of an extremely slight figure ; No. 2, made of fancy sateen with ribbon decoration, shows the natural hip and high bust effect ; No. 3, illustrated in white coutil, is for larger hips and high bust ; No. 4 of white satin, is designed to reduce the too pronounced curves below the waist.”
“No. 1 is a ribbon or tape girdle, especially favored for golf, tennis, and other outdoor sports ; No. 2 is a novelty corset of brocaded satin, lacing at each side of the front ; No. 3 combines a bust supporter of white satin ribbon and a hip reducing corset of sateen ; No. 4 is a slightly boned silk jersey model for a medium figure, giving the high bust effect.”
I love that it includes an image of a ribbon corset! I’d love to make one of those some day.
I find it very interesting that one of the corsets includes a bust supporter. This is the era when the top edge of the corsets started to move closer to the waist, so it is very nice to know there were options out there for ladies who required or desired bust support in a corset. Many ladies would wear separate brassieres, which offered very little support compared to what we are accustomed to today.
I have picked up the Truly Victorian S-Curve corset again, which I set aside and has a remained a UFO (unfinished object) since last year. These are very inspiring for me to finish it by the Historical Sew Fortnightly deadline!
I actually love these images so much that I have added one of them to my Cafepress store. So you can get T shirts, journals, etc, with the image if you love it as much as I do!
I do not mind if you share these original images, but please do remember to link back and give credit, as it always takes me a bit of time to clean up the originals and share. Thanks :)
Emileigh
February 26, 2014 at 4:41 pm (11 years ago)I don’t know that I would like to play tennis in these, even the “sporting” one, but they are gorgeous!
Gina White
February 27, 2014 at 4:07 pm (11 years ago)Oh my heavens…those corsets are so beautiful! Of course they would never look that good on me as I do not have that waist…but still! So incredible!! Thank you for sharing!
Blessings!
Gina