Those kinky Edwardians...

[spyderfyngers]

Cool article on nipple piercing and tattoos in the Edwardian age. How fresh nipple rings and corsets co-existed, I'm not sure, but the ladies quoted seem to be quite serene about the experience:

"I partially undressed and seated myself on a couch by the side of Madame B, who passed her arm round my neck and held me steadily..."

Comments

[nympholepsy]

Nifty. I'd heard of the nipple piercing before, but never the high society tattoos.

This is the kind of thing that makes my costumer brain go "hmmmmm" and file them away for later use.

[spyderfyngers]

I think Winston Churchill's mother had a green dragon tattooed on her wrist. The piercings would make for an interesting period drama, methinks...

[sphinxvictorian]

Well, actually by that period, many corsets did not actually cover the breasts, but stopped just underneath them. Above the corsets they wore things called bust bodices, early precursors of brassieres. So the nipple rings would have been uncomfortable inside a bust bodice, possibly, but only if the lady were well-endowed. If she were smaller-chested, the bust bodice might not be needed...

My reference book for this is "The History of Underclothes" by C. Willett and Phyllis Cunnington.

[spyderfyngers]

That's very interesting. I'm used to seeing Edwardian underbust corsets on modern corsetry sites, but I didn't know how widely they were used back then. I was wondering how they managed not to tear the healing tissue when tightening the things, and tight clothing in general is a bad idea after that kind of piercing. Thank you for the info!