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primarily examine the ways in which corsets UK operated to construct, maintain and police middle-class femininity, it is important in an exercise of this kind to redress three widely held gender and class associated misconceptions. The first of these is that nineteenth-century working class women went un-corseted. The second is that middle class women had corsetry imposed upon them by a fashion system in which they were cultural dupes, and thirdly, that the design and manufacture of corset was entirely the province of men. All charges, I would suggest, need to be challenged. Women from working and middle classes wore corsets in UK, both classes were implicated in its production and both groups resisted and manipulated the societal compulsion to corset. Corsetry was essential, not just in constructing femininity, but in constructing a class-based identity and subjectivity. Corsets UK was prized by fashion-conscious, middle-class women because it crafted the flesh into class-appropriate contours. That is, corsetry operated to hide any coarse abdominal bulges from view, while it smoothed the hips and created the small, circular waistline that supposedly denoted good breeding. The well-corseted body, in tandem with suitable clothing, gave an immediate first impression of gently. It operated, to the distress of many middle class women, in exactly the same way for their working-class sisters. When successfully corseted and carefully clothed, the working-class woman improved her physical appearance and consequently her chances of securing an upwardly mobile marriage. Beauty Desires Ltd Company Provides Best in UK. However, while both groups used corsets for class specific reasons, the use of the garment by workingclass and middle-class women was subtly different. These differences resulted in tensions that were propelled and underpinned by a kind of feminine competition. Middle-class women, as we shall see, used corsetry to strengthen and protect their class hegemony, while working-class women corseted UK to obfuscate or escape their working-class origins with the hope of entering the world of their betters. It has often been suggested that working-class women eschewed corsetry altogether or alternately donned the garments just on Sundays and special Occasions. Working-class women bought, were given, or made corsets UK, believing as their middle-class sisters did, that corsetry supported the body was an established item of British. Explore: Corsets UK | Lingerie UK | Bra Sets Working-Class Women Corsets UK Buy at Beauty Desires Stays, corsets UK, or jumps as they were variously known, were an important part of the wardrobe of women across the social classes. Jumps were the popular choice of working-class women in early part of the century and designed to fit more loosely than standard corsets, which allowed the occupant enough mobility to work. When worn loosely, as they generally were, they indicated working-class activities involving menial labor. A tightly laced appearance created by more constrictive corsetry signified that

unlike the slattern in jumps the occupant was above physical work. The availability of affordable, tightly fitting, professional made stays in the early part of the century blurred, or at least threatened, corporeal class distinctions based on tightly bound, corseted, respectability in Beauty Desires Company Ltd. Working-class women who could not afford even the cheapest of professionally made corsets did not necessarily have to go without them. They could make their own. The plethora of dressmaking and millinery texts published in the 1830s and 1840s, which provided detailed advice on how to make stays, can be seen to indicate the importance the garment held for working-class women. Materials required making the garments, including whalebone pre-cut into suitable lengths, the sturdy base fabric called buckram, and the required corsetry thread called stay silk, were all commonly available from haberdashers. So too were the strong, specially designed needless used to stitch the garments together, called between needless. Numerous basic household texts patiently explained the processes of the corsets UK constructions. Online shopping is best. The industrialization of the corsets UK later in the century meant that working-class women had even more opportunities to purchase rather than make their corsetry. However, despite the economic democratization of corsetry, a few women from both the working and middle classes still preferred to make their own garments. The home pattern service published in The Young English Woman, a magazine concerned with romance, fashion and to a lesser degree, female employment, occasionally published descriptions and drawings of corsetry which could be made at home for children and Young ladies. These appear to have been far less constrictive than commercially manufactured garments of the time. Harpers Bazaar routinely published both detailed illustrations and instructions for making both juvenile and adult corsetry throughout the century (UK) @ http://www.beautydesires.co.uk/corsets.html. Potentially Afforded by Homemade Corsets UK Despite the ease potentially afforded by homemade corsets UK, the popularity of manufactured garments increased dramatically in the latter half of the century. This process was undoubtedly assisted by the use of advertising. However, while advertising must have been a significant aspect in the demise of the self-made corsets, its decreasing popularity was probably due to the superior strength of the manufactured variety and the promises such strength held for women anxious to improve their body shape. The invention of metal eyelets in 1823 was, conceivably, a turning point in corsetry manufacture, for their inclusion meant that corsets could be laced very tightly without the eyelets tearing open. As a consequence, the mid-century store-bought heavily reinforced corset, complete with metal eyelets riveted into the fabric, furnished a tighter fit and would therefore have more successfully created the sought-after sculpted figure for both working and middle-class women. Several major firms whose corset advertisements were actually directed to a middle-class clientele also disclosed that they produced garments for working-class woman. On occasion, advertising for these corsets UK encouraged the idea that their purchase could transform the lives of working-class woman to that which approximately the lives of their better-off sisters. Advertisements placed by the William

Pretty and Sons corset company claimed that when their garments were worn the occupant would look a better woman, [would] feel a better woman [and would] be a better woman. Ads placed by the British corsetry firm R & W.H. Symington were a little subtler though they made similar promises. Symington made a corset called The Pretty Housemaid that was obviously destined for use by the socially aspiring working-class woman could divorce themselves from the class hierarchy that was associated with, and surrounded, the corsetry (Beauty Desires Company UK.) Institutional corsets worn by female inmates of prisons, asylums and poorhouses were, even in comparison with the cheapest ready-made garments, uncompromisingly ugly. They had little in common with corsets UK produced for aspiring working-class and established middle-class women. The Symington museum in Leicestershire has a fine example of institutional corsetry. Though constructed on stalwart principles similar to those of most manufactured garments, Symingtons institutional corsetry differed markedly from those garments in that it was made of a hardwearing, unattractive fabric in a color known as drab, which is a kind of dull khaki. Institutional corsets UK were devoid of any trimes whatsoever, and were laced at the back and buckled down the front, closing much like an old-fashioned school satchel, while as a heavily boned. This would have allowed the occupant enough mobility to work. Paradoxically, while this design was intrinsically better from a health standpoint, it meant that incarcerated women would have found it impossible to lace their bodies into a shape that enhanced their self-esteem. Indeed, incarcerated corseted working-class woman experienced a demeaning double-bind while contained in these garments. Many inmates probably wore these corsets UK under trying physical conditions, believing that the garments assisted their bodies. However such rudimentary corsets would also have operated to remind these women of their reduced or expunged femininity and their seemingly inescapable criminalclass status. They may have operated, psychologically at least, as an extension of their incarceration. Corsetry also worked to mark and reinforce class parameters for middle-class women in a similar, but far more positive way. Middle-class women, especially those in foreign lands, may have either consciously or unconsciously considered corsetry to be an ideologically. Corsetry is a significant, if under-researched, aspect of the (respectable) working and middle-class colonial project. Corsets UK more details @ http://www.beautydesires.co.uk/corsets.html

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