Restrictive History
The Evolution of Corsets and Neckties
By Kimberly Toms with Kristen Held / Photographs By Patricia Reh
Spring 2007

As one mentions the word “corset,” one of two images generally appears in the mind of anyone within earshot. The first is that of a pre-Civil War debutante, as she grasps a post on her canopied bed, trying desperately to maintain balance while her housemaid struggles with full force to tighten the laces and cinch the already tiny waist to suit fashionable finicality. The second, more modern image, is that of sleek, shiny, black vinyl and steel clasps, as the dominatrix cracks her whip.

From Chastity to Vanity
How is it that one garment evolved from one end of the fashion spectrum to the direct opposite, first being an article required of the most chaste and elite ladies, then being a symbol of ruthlessness and sexual provocation? Very ironically, primarily individualists, those who are neither inhibited nor afraid to make a fashion statement, now wear what was originally conceived to produce heightened feminine beauty in women of society, and then eventually distorted into a tool of vanity, fashionable conformity and discipline of the female form. In modern times, the wearer is sometimes even an overt sexual disciplinarian and anything but softly feminine.

What is less frequently realized than the Gone with the Wind scene of tugging and lacing to obtain an 18-inch waist, is that the corset was originally designed in the 1500s as a fashionable cylindrical form not meant to cinch the waist so much as to support and spotlight the breasts. As depicted in popular films such as Elizabeth, Ever After, Dangerous Beauty, and Shakespeare in Love, the average corset wearer was a lady of society, a blueblood, a member of the elite. She is frequently depicted with a heavy bosom, adorned with large baubles and gems.

It was not until over three hundred years later, in the Victorian era, that women became competitive in their waist size, cinching ever tighter and training their torsos into an exaggerated hourglass shape that reminds one of Who Framed Roger Rabbit’s Jessica Rabbit physique. This obsession with obtaining the most curvaceous figure and smallest waist possible raged out of control, starting from the 1840s and lasting well into the early 1900s, as part of the Edwardian era. Clear examples of this look are historically accurate movies, such as Anna and the King, Little Women, Gone with the Wind, Tombstone, The Age of Innocence and Titanic.

This mass desire of 19th and 20th century women to appear up to par for a certain fashionable and societal expectation is quite similar to the modern woman’s desire to be thin and fit, a size 4 or 6. Many women of today have utilized methods to achieve the same goals as the Victorian and Edwardian ladies, except through dieting (even starvation) versus binding. Most still strive to wear the smallest size possible, have the most sought-after physique and to be just a little bit better than those around her. The only difference is that the woman of yesteryear tightened the laces and women of the past thirty years skip meals, crash diet and workout excessively to obtain similar results.

Going Corsetless
The majority of us can recall hearing tales of the negative physiological affects of corsetry and tight lacing on the female body. But, little is regarded about how diligently advocates of corsetry, such as the Corset Manufacturers Association, fought to keep women in such garments beyond 1900. Clearly, manufacturers, retailers and salespeople had incentive for continuing to sell their products, thus utilized a massive marketing campaign to ensure longevity in manufacture and sales, despite the growing desire of women to shed the structured wear. As women were rejecting, the industry was scrambling.

Initially, industrialists fought the woman’s desire to “go corsetless” through mention of femininity, morality and respectability within advertising campaigns and editorials. As the fight to retain a foothold in the early 1900s undergarment market intensified, claims turned from such Victorian ideals to those of pure vanity, such as perpetuation of youth, concealment of physical imperfection, reversal of gender inferiority and even compensation for evolutionary inadequacy. It was an era during which there was a clear shift from employing simple moralistic opinion and arguments to influence women to those supposedly backed by scientific fact. As late as the 1920’s, corset manufacturer trade journals declared that the “corsetless evil” could result in dissipation of muscular strength, injury to internal organs and even destruction of American sovereignty.

By 1917, as the Suffragettes converged upon the White House and birth control became a hot topic of political and scientific debate, hemlines slowly shortened, women showed their legs, and in the process, a new movement toward freedom in women’s dress, behavior and rights surged forward…into the era of stretch fabrics, nylons and, eventually, spandex.

Designer Reform
Christian Dior revisited the corseted silhouette (without an actual corset) as part of his “New Look” of 1947. The standard for the next decade thus became a small torso, shoulders and waist, a large bust with almost indefinable hips under flowing, mid-calf length skirts-just as popularized by Ava Gardner.

Perhaps it is Vivienne Westwood who deserves most credit for both the resurgence of the corset into modern fashion, as well as its frequent consideration in the collective consciousness as one of the basic fashion elements of fetishism. Westwood designed the clothing worn by the Sex Pistols for their first gig, utilizing punk-wear staples such as spiked collars, bondage gear, safety pins and outrageous styling. 

In 1987, she was the first designer to introduce corsets as outerwear, as part of her Harris Tweed Collection that included the “Stature of Liberty” corset adorned with Swarovski crystals. Westwood’s study of fashion history led to her philosophy that clothing is about “changing the shape of the body, about having a restriction,” versus the more conventional expectation that clothing should fit the shape of the body.

Since Vivienne Westwood’s modern debut of corsets in 1987 and Madonna’s many appearances in varied versions of her own whim during the nineties, corsets have become much more mainstream, while maintaining their edgy and fetishist appeal. They are now prevalent in high fashion, as prominently designed and utilized by Christian LaCroix, Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen within their lines of the past six years. As time progresses, corsets are more accepted as outerwear and less the whispered-about clothing of a rare brave soul. 

According to Amanda Violett, an online corsetry group moderator and corset model from Dallas, “Corsets make every part of your body look more refined.” That is parallel to the original objective behind conception and wear of corsets, of hundreds of years ago.

However, she also has a more modern perspective. “Wearing a corset makes a statement about your sexuality and confidence. Women of all sizes can improve their feelings about themselves, once they [don] a corset. A small busted girl gains a boosted bust line. A curvier gal has a more defined and tight waist. A busty girl gains a tall and firmly voluptuous shelf.”

Amy, a 40 year-old corset wearer, claims, “I love the tightness of the binding, the way it feels like I am being forced to be more aware of my posture. Every movement feels more graceful and even calculated, like a cat walking atop a picket fence. Everything about a corset makes me feel powerful and incredibly sexy.”

So, clearly, wearing a corset can boost a woman’s self esteem and sense of personal power. For a man, or other observers of the corseted frame, such a garment may be attractive due to the refinement of a woman’s physique to conform more closely to old fashioned societal standards of curvaceous, Marilyn Monroe-esque femininity. In addition, a confident wearer is sexually appealing, as confidence is key to one’s own heightened sex appeal.

Knotted Elitists
In the world of men’s fashion, nothing compares to the constrictive nature of the corset like the ever-knotted necktie. Although now more commonly referred to as “neckwear,” ties became fashionable in the artistic sense around the necks of the elite and royalty in France during the mid-1600s.

The exact origin of the necktie, however, is of great debate. Some historians have attributed neck scarves to Shih Huan Ti, China’s first emperor, who died in 210 B.C. Others claim Trajan, the militaristic Roman emperor, commissioned statues in 113 A.D. to commemorate his forces’ victory in what is now Romania, with the figures donning at least three versions of the modern necktie.

Perhaps the most popular perspective is that of Croatian mercenaries having worn silk kerchiefs around their necks during the reign of Louis XIII, as part of the Thirty Years’ War that ended in 1648. According to lore, Louis was so captivated by the look of what was then termed the “cravat,” he took to wearing one himself, launching a global fashion that has endured through today.

Framed and Strangled
Whatever its origin, the necktie was labeled a Steinkirk in the late 1690s, after the Battle of Steinkirk in Flanders in 1692. Once puffy and using up to six feet of expensive fabric as the Steinkirk, the tie has settled into the thin, simpler form we see today. In the process, the necktie took on a similar status appeal as the corset had for women. Men used neckties of expensive fabric to separate themselves from the lower economic classes they referred to as “social inferiors.” Neckwear became a symbol of organizational allegiance, military membership, occupation and status.

Until 1845, cravats were primarily solid colored or stark white. Then, a Cambridge University cricket club is believed to have utilized their flag colors of black, red-orange and gold as a necktie. This was the beginning of sports color wear in ties, followed in 1880 with the school tie birth, at Oxford University’s Exeter College. Since that time, school color ties are widely accepted on both sides of the Atlantic.

Designer brands had their birth in the men’s neckwear genre in the 1920s, with sales primarily geared toward women. In the 1960’s, fewer men wore traditional clothing as part of the Peacock Revolution against formalized standards of attire. After exhibiting a comeback in the 1970’s and a resurgence of suit wear in the 80’s, neckties have experienced solidification in the wardrobes of upwardly mobile and accomplished white-collar men, despite the advent of “Casual Friday.”

With suits being somewhat standardized and traditional in the corporate realm, many men find an outlet for self-expression in the style and colors of neckwear that they select and wear as part of workday attire. Politicians convey messages through which tie they don, including an option of a red “power tie” or a blue conservative option. Of course, everyone remembers President Bill Clinton’s affinity for neckwear, including the message he sent out via national television to Monica Lewinsky, by wearing a tie she presented to him as a gift.

Critics of the simple, yet typically colorful, fashion statement have called the American tie “one of the most obvious phallic symbols in history.” However one feels about the look of neckwear, or the wearing of a tie, this one piece of silk knotted at the Adam’s apple frames the man’s face as it cinches at the throat, just as a corset frames the figure of a woman as it cinches at the waist. Both articles of attire are also physical expressions of individual taste and personality.

Tied and Laced
Beyond the similarities of restriction, idealism and conformity, as well as popular origins within a hundred years or so of one another, the man’s necktie and the woman’s corset were not bound on a parallel path. Women, with the aid of prodigious fashion designers of the 20th century, in part due to women’s liberation and with advancement in fabric construction, determined comfort and accentuation of a natural female form as an element of beauty to be preferred, thus shedding the under-armor that once so heavily constricted. Men, for the most part, have continued to don and even embrace the necktie as a symbol of power, with little change in its form or appeal as a basic fashion element of the past hundred years.

Little is ever really known about the direction of fashion in the future. However, if history is indeed a proving ground for coming standards and events, it appears that women’s undergarments will continue to become less binding and ever-smaller. Corsetry will probably remain popular in the world of fetishism and as a bold, yet occasional, fashion statement, as modern women seem more apt to prefer comfort over conformity.

On the other hand, neckwear appears to be firmly rooted in the future of men’s attire. Although wear may continue to decrease as a standard only for important meetings and formal events, it seems that men enjoy the individuality and power that can be exuded from the selection and wear of one’s neck tie. For the time being and near future, men are likely to continue in acceptance of the slight discomfort of a bound throat, in exchange for the polish and style presented through a few feet of colorful silk fabric.

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