A snippet I would like to share about corsets in 1913 plus questions about bust support.

[Yvonne De Rooij]

I was talking about old (edwardian to 1949) books on sewing with TheLongHairedFlapper on her youtube channel, and she recommended some freely downloadable books from archive . com

Comments

[ext_3749756]

The only uncomfortable corsets I've ever worn were corsets not custom made for me (corsets from friends who egged me on to try them on) and when I wore my corsets much tighter than they were designed for. For example if the corset in question was custom made for me and designed with a 10cm lacing gap and I laced it much tighter than that.

I trust Cathy Hay's viewpoint because she presents photographs from the era that illustrate that regular people wearing the s-bend corset didn't have that weird forward stance (unless they posed that way). There doesn't seem to be any weird spine twisting going on in those pictures.
Of course the fashion illustrations of the era had the most exaggerated curves, making it look uncomfortable. And people of the era could make themselves look like that, by either posing like that for photos and/or padding out the bust and bum to a greater degree than the regular people around them.
Also if you look at photographs from the edwardian era of people going about their business you see women with normal posture in their corsets, not the bent forward one.
And if you make a corset from an early edwardian pattern (when the s-bend was fashionable) it will not force your stance forward.
I doubt you could get the "fashionable posture and curve" by a corset alone, some padding (even if that is the ruffled corset cover) has to be involved.

https://thepeacockdress.com/2015/02/the-edwardian-silhouette-emerges/

I think some people want to believe that corsets were unhealthy torture devices. So nothing you could say can convince them otherwise.

For my body I would need an s-bend corset, a ruffled corset cover, padding under the corset at the bust, padding under the corset at the side hips and under the corset at the bum, and then padding (or some kind of petticoat that added volume in one particular area) over the bum and hips for added volume to even get to the edwardian silhouette and posture.

I agree with you on the tightlacing.

I considered buying Corsets and Crinolines but didn't go through with it. It's got mixed reviews, some of the people who don't like it have good points concerning the information that is given in the book.
And I fear that it goes over too many eras and then ends up not going into much detail per era. I'm not sure if it actually falls into that trap, as I haven't read it, but it is something I can imagine happens with a book going over this many decades.
Right now I only have one book which is by Linda Sparks (The Basics of Corset Building).

[virginiadear]

I never thought about spine twisting. But the spine can be put into uncomfortable angles without twisting, at least one of which would be that back-thrust of the hips.
If you simply lean forward, with your back "straight," as we refer to it, you may fatigue the muscles. But horsemen and horsewomen who ride astride do lean forward from the hip to a greater or lesser degree depending on the "fashion" of the seat/style at that point in time. (I've seen what is called a "balanced seat" in equitation go from a very balanced or nearly upright posture to a definite forward-leaning posture without being a "forward seat", and back to the very balanced one, again, over the course of my lifetime. The lean or bend occurs at the hip flexure; the spine remains in its naturally correct position.)
Now, for someone who rides "aside," or side-saddle, there was in the Edwardian period and even today some concern, mostly by medical people as far as I know, about the "twist" of the lower spine. Not having ever ridden "aside," I can't say. What I think I've seen in photos, though, is that the entire body is actually at an angle relative to the horse (since both legs are on one side of the horse's body), but that the rider's neck twists a bit so the rider is looking forward, which is correct in equitation. But lacking experiential knowledge....

I respect both Cathy Hay and Marion McNealy.
But neither they nor you nor any man's army will convince me that every Edwardian lady wore her corsets sensibly; nor that every person used padding; nor for that matter not every woman had her corset/s custom-made for her body: many purchased corsets ready-to-wear and like ladies today who are wearing the wrong sized bra were wearing a corset which didn't fit perfectly.
I am utterly confident that some of them had backaches.
I am automatically suspicious of photos of actresses or others who got their livings by entertaining the public. My skepticism may be unfounded, but it's there. Those women could be as idiotic as anyone else of otherwise normal intelligence.
Oh, and Marion included an image of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, a rebel and an iconoclast if ever there was one; the quote for which she may be best known is this one: "If you can't say anything nice about someone, come sit by me."

I don't believe that every lady tight-laced, nor do I believe that NO lady tight-laced.
People will do all sorts of foolish things, some for a while, others for always.

When "Corsets and Crinolines" was first printed (that I was aware of) in the late 1980's or early 1990's, it was invaluable for the diagrams of various styles of corsets or stays or "pairs of bodies."
It is full of quotations from magazines or papers or personal letters of the time.

I have yet to encounter any one book on any one topic which is truly encyclopedic or which pleases each and every one of its readers.
Neither has it escaped me that often, the reader wants to be spoon-fed, wants to avoid having to think for him- or herself, and wants above all else to be absolutely, unequivocally RIGHT.
When I first got involved with making and wearing historical clothing, including undergarments, there were no commercial patterns and no books, no diagrams. You read descriptions, went to museums, made drawings, made your best guesses, and took your best shot. Then ONE commercial pattern company made ONE, just ONE, pattern from the 1860s.
A mere drop in the bucket, but eventually the drop became a trickle. It seems still to be a trickle, rather than a river, but at least it's a place for people to begin if they haven't drafting ability, themselves.

All that having been said, please tell me what you think of Linda Sparks's book "The Basics of Corset Building.")

[ext_3749756]

Spine twisting was a poor choice of words on my part. I think forcing the spine into an uncomfortable or unnatural position would be more accurate.

"But neither they nor you nor any man's army will convince me that every Edwardian lady wore her corsets sensibly" I agree.
I was approaching this from the view of "this and that was done by a lot of people and available to a lot of people, so it was period accurate, I will pick and choose what I think is the most healthy from those things" so as to minimize damage and optimize comfort.
I am not under the impression from Cathey Hay's article that she thought everyone did those things either.
Afaik most middle class women had off the rack corsets, a lot of those were postal order corsets.
You just provided your intended waist measurement and that was it.
Rich people could afford custom made corsets, I believe this is also the most comfortable.
If I were to make one myself I would choose the length to fit me (so custom lengths) but go with the proportions from a ready made pattern for my intended waist size and then padding it.
Or to put it differently I wish to purchase a pattern for an edwardian corset, alter the lengths to fit me but go with the widths the pattern itself gives.

"I am automatically suspicious of photos of actresses or others who got their livings by entertaining the public." As you should be as those pictures were also often re-touched.

There are plenty of candid photographs on the internet of non-celebrity women going about their business in the early edwardian era, you can tell from those pictures that don't appear to be tight laced (I guess most of those women didn't find it practical) and they don't have the exaggerated stance/silhouette/posture that was popular in the era.
You can still tell it's the edwardian era, and they still wear the fashion of the time.
Usually long skirts with petticoats, a regular blouse (I supposed they called it a "shirtwaist") with either bust ruffles or a ruffled corset cover underneath plus a corset.
There doesn't seem to be heavy padding going on.

"Neither has it escaped me that often, the reader wants to be spoon-fed, wants to avoid having to think for him- or herself, and wants above all else to be absolutely, unequivocally RIGHT."
I don't think that's a bad thing to want.
I have spent many hours reading articles online and books irl, watching videos, and examining corsets I bought. I'm not opposed to doing my own homework.
However if I am going to spend money on a book I want it to have enough new information for me to justify the expense. Otherwise it would be better not to buy it.
When I say that I wish there was something that went into depth about victorian and edwardian corsets, yes I want to be spoonfed if I am paying a lot for it.
These books are written by people who know a lot more than I do, usually fashion historians who had access to resources I don't have access to, and books of this caliber are usually 80+ dollars.

I absolutely love Linda Sparks's corset building book. It does what it says on the cover and the layout/design was very well chosen.
Different approaches to construction are explained, each construction method comes with a step by step explanation with pictures illustrating each step.
It takes all of the mystery out of the basics.
It spoon feeds you the basics, and that's why I love it. Believe me when I say I still had to do my own thinking and decision making, but I didn't have to re-invent the wheel on my own.
Books like this allow you to progress very quickly because they spoon feed you, and I say that is along the lines of "work smarter, not harder".

This is the information age, I don't see a point to re-inventing the wheel on your own if there are all of these resources around.
Someone else is doing the work/research, and I'm willing to pay for it and I still end up having to fill the information gaps with my own guesswork.
I don't expect anything to be 100% complete and 100% accurate.

Sorry if I come over as defensive, to me it seemed you thought badly of people who wanted to be spoonfed. I personally consider wanting to be spoonfed a good thing, as you are working smarter not harder and it helps you be more critical of the first books you buy so you save money and time.

[virginiadear]

H'mm.
You've given me some things about which to think, so I will go,now, and think about them.

[ext_3749756]

Sorry if I said anything rude or offensive or perhaps I came over as preachy, that was not my intent.
I cannot imagine what it is like to be a person who had to figure it out all on their own with no patterns, no books and only historical corsets to look at and now finds themselves in a time where a lot of corset knowledge is available for free by doing a simple google search.