corsets are bad why it's quite obvious
they squish organs restricted movement
broke ribs and made women faint torture
devices and symbols of patriarchy right
right and so generation is often
confirmed by mainstream media this
Florida lady spends her days and nights
in a corset and is unable to perform any
of her daily duties all of it to achieve
an 18 inch waist or this drawing from
1894 shows how squished women's organs
were with a corset for this actress just
confessed wearing a corset for a movie
made her breathless here's the thing did
you ever think about what women were
before brass were invented and I'm not
talking about a size I'm talking about
like F size a size G sizes growing up I
always watched movies showing ladies
being tight laced by their maids or read
books about Terrence fainting but as I
grew older I realized that none of these
books none of these stories were written
at a time where people actually were
corsets so for example Gone with the
Wind which greatly shaped my perception
of corsets was published almost 20 years
after traditional courses disappeared
and what about my favorite books written
in the actual course sometimes none of
them mentioned corsets not once why
because they were such an obvious piece
of wardrobe that no one ever expected
them to go away another thing I didn't
realize is that mates that were tight
lacing the mistresses also were corsets
while doing that hell even the ladies
may love interests wore corsets
yeah man were corsets too so of course
it were so dangerous why did most of the
society rich or poor ladies man why did
they wear them no sir that question we
have to delve deeper into the
construction of courses so the modern
narration tends to put the accents on on
corsets that were drastically reducing
the waste that would put the tension on
the middle of the corsets straining the
muscles but Victorian corsets were
actually incredibly complicated well
tailored garments that were meant to fit
your body perfectly
meaning that all of your body would
receive sort of the same amount of
pressure in that case the biggest
impracticality of
wearing corsets was the movement
restrictions as in you were not able to
reach your toes while wearing a corset
but to be completely honest I can do
that even without the corsets why would
people wear corsets don't as I mentioned
before the bra was invented quite
recently and before that corsets were
kind of doing that job of course it
supported the back by distributing the
breasts weight evenly across the body it
also helped to support the hips against
the weight of multiple petticoats and
layers of crinoline and bustles etc 19th
century dresses were quite complicated
garments with lots of layers and corsets
were helping your hips deal with all
that fashion rise it made the clothing
fit a lot better and look a lot smoother
which helped achieving the fashionable
silhouette men's corsets on the other
hand helped with reducing the beer belly
and were generally used in the early
19th century to sort of shape the torso
which at the time was it was fashionable
to be slim waisted and poor women wore
corsets not only for fashion purposes
and to support their backs and breasts
but also to show the rich people that
they were actually responsible
well-put-together respectable and
capable but maybe they just didn't know
any better well let's have a look at
modern corset wearers we have a couple
of examples of extreme tight lacing
which always gets the most media
attention like it's not about the
aesthetics anymore it's about the
challenge currently in the Guinness Book
the smallest waist on a living person
this 39 year old mother of three is in
love with weight training then we have
people that were courses on a daily
basis because it's their style and
they're able to work play write horses
in them run businesses well then we have
people with back problems that were
special orthopedic corsets as a form of
treatment but they're torture devices
right then we also have tens of
thousands of reenact races around the
world that cook so take care of children
run around the camp in their corsets and
we're talking about like real Victorian
corsets here obviously not the original
ones but the ones made using the
original patterns they literally do
everything that they have today they
carry heavy buckets full of water a day
they generally run around historic sites
wearing corsets and they praise the
corsets as back pain relievers and they
do that while constantly interacting
with tourists going like are you wearing
a corset do you not feel like fainting
and I seen a lot of costumers do crazy
stuff in corsets I've seen some
customers doing push-ups I've seen
customers riding horses and I myself
have tried bouldering in a corset and I
climbed a tree in a corset without any
issues
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
what about all pressing MERS they were
full on historical costume while singing
performing and just doing their job
[Music]
and what about celebrities did you
really believe that all the red carpet
ladies have got great figures
[Music]
let me let you in on a little secret
almost all red carpet grounds especially
that was wasted ones are heavily
structured meaning there is some
corseted under later to make them look
that well but you never hear them
complaining about that so of course it
weren't that bad where the this
misconception come from well
surprisingly or unsurprisingly we have
to thank man for that women's fashion
has always been ridiculed like pamphlets
satires throughout history often focused
on new fashion trends new hairstyles new
styles and women following those fashion
trends were always seen as vain and even
indecent sometimes why was that well in
a world where a woman's only way of
expressing herself was through the
clothes and through the fashion that
field was obviously looked down upon and
in Victorian era where the obedient wife
expectation was very much alive it
clashed with the growing popularity of
women's rights movement so the opposers
of the movement took every opportunity
to bring women down and it's also no
coincidence that in 19th century fashion
was one of the only industries not only
relying on but also run by women
throughout a lot of the century most of
the high-fashion designs were actually
made by women and most famous fashion
houses were actually run by women so
before there was charlesworth fashion
was ruled by Madame's madam Palmer
Madame Barra Madame Prost Madame Qadri
milliner's Madame brookie Madame reboot
Madame Pierrot and a lot of Madame owned
businesses some of which employed over a
hundred workers it was mainly Madam's
who designed corsets and mainly Madam's
who sewed them in their madam owned
studios so no wonder that men especially
those opposing to him Asif Raj we're so
keen to pick on women's corsets and
ridiculed aware of corsets which was a
prime example of women's pride and
independence the moral or immoral
consequences of course at wearing were
always kind of a topic of a public
debate but it wasn't until the second
half of the 19th century when the
development of medicine started a whole
new ante
course at mania doctors argued that
wearing corsets could lead to
tuberculosis cancer cutting deliver and
have an even bad behavior when the x-ray
was invented doctors were really quick
to scan a corseted body to further prove
the harmful effects of wearing a corset
there is however little scientific proof
that forces were as damaging to the
bodies as they claimed if they were
would in most 19th century female
skeletons be deformed and we know that
to be untrue there aren't numerous
medical reports of women with corset
induced broken ribs or livers cut in
half we don't know of any famous women
suffering from broken ribs or corset
related health problems and we also know
that a very little percentage of women
actually tighten their corsets super
tightly why because they weren't live in
mannequins they they had stuff to do
they had work to do in business to
attend to and it's also no wonder that
the debate was really hot in the 1890s
and 1900s when women started being more
active and practicing sports and
appearing at the universities the
suffrage movement was stronger than ever
and women were generally speaking more
visible in public so every chance to
pick on anything that would bring them
down was taken and it also makes sense
that corsets were the center of
attention at the time because it's true
that the female silhouette of the 1890s
and 1900s was quite striking but a
little bit poor men know that it was
mostly clever cuts and a lot of padding
nowadays we often fall into a similar
trap we look at a photograph and we
think wow that's a striking silhouette
but little do we know about all of the
stuff that's going on underneath the
corsets main purpose was to support the
bus smooth out the tummy rolls and
generally speaking to what spax does
nowadays the rest was done by bumpers
and bust fillers Frehley corset covers
an optical illusion
not to mention that majority of the late
19th century and early 20th century
photographs were heavily edited and it's
quite easy to spot once you know what
you're looking for we look at those
photographs without knowing they were
altered and that's why it's so easy for
us to believe that women surgically
removed ribs to achieve that kind of
silhouette but you know what knowing the
state of Victorian medicine which made
it dangerous even to pull a tooth do you
really think any woman would undergo a
likely deadly procedure only for an
effect that could be easily achieved by
some strategical padding and smart
tailoring
[Music]
what about drawings and paintings
I myself was often terrified by how
freakishly small waists are on fashion
plays or paintings
I am looked at them assuming that people
back then were completely honest and
that improving your look is a completely
modern invention why was I wrong
portraits have always been heavily
idealized and fashion plates only show
an exaggerated unnatural beauty ideal to
accentuate the fashionable silhouette
more and make it easier to follow you
can have a look at more realistic female
figures on film at the time but for
actual portrayals of how women's bodies
looked like at the time we won't know
for sure unless we see them naked why do
modern actresses complain about
uncomfortable corsets then of course it
making is a complicated process and it
takes a lot of time and a lot of fitting
and it's vital that it fits perfectly
that requires both extensive fittings
and a process called breaking in a
corset which means slowly adjusting the
corset to your body by wearing it for
small amounts of time daily with the
reality of film production it's very
unlikely that there is enough time for
that there probably isn't enough time to
personalize and break in a corset for
each actress involved let alone for the
actresses to get used to wearing it for
long periods of time of course that if
well-made shouldn't be uncomfortable
[Music]
so why have older films books and media
been lying to us because we love feeling
superior over previous eras we like to
think that in medieval times people
would not wash themselves and would
drink on the urine we like to think that
in the 18th century women's hair were
infected with rats I mean realistically
why would anyone want to live with a
rodent in their hair if they could
easily avoid it we like to believe that
people lived in practically and were
generally stupid because it makes us
feel better about the progress that
we've done and while it's true that in
terms of medicine and human rights we've
come very far from the times when women
were corsets people were always people
they always wanted to laugh they always
wanted to work to play they wanted to
feel good generally speaking they wanted
to live and they weren't willing to give
that all up in the name of dangerous or
life-threatening fashion they were ok
with giving up comfort though that's
true clothes at that time were very
formal very tight-fitting very long and
it was actually that and not necessarily
corsets that sparked numerous dress
reform movements but that's another
story
to sum up next time you hear a corset
related horror story ask yourself
whether it's not a myth straight from a
19th century male led newspaper now to
clarify it's not true that only men
found corsets controversial and
ridiculed them plenty of women did too
and as with every public debate there
were different voices from both sexes it
is also not true that wearing corsets
for an extensive period of time left
women's bodies unaffected studies show
wearing a corset for a long period of
times slightly adjusted your digestive
system and may shift your organs a bit
similarly to what happens when you're
pregnant
also women wearing corsets were
sometimes not able to drop them at once
because some of their muscles have
weakened and it's also worth noting that
while most women wore corsets for their
own pleasure or to compete with other
women
men were no strangers to fetishizing the
look either way as everything in history
it's a complicated topic full of little
nuances and different voices and it
deserves to be treated as such and not
to be shallowed to another history hoax
so next time someone goes like but
corsets killed women tell them not to
act like a typical 19th century jebediah
sincerely an occasional Victorian corset
wearer that even a title I don't think
so