HISTOEY OF THE COSSET.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3100, 24 January 1879, Page 4

HISTOEY OF THE COSSET.

The corset had its origin in Italy, and was introduced from that country into France by Catherine de Medicis. Mary Stuart and Diane Poitiers did not, however, follow the fashion, but it was admitted by all the ladies in the French court that it was indispensable to the beauty of the female figure, and was, therefore, adopted by them. The corset was in those days in its infancy, and it assumed more of the rough character of a knight's cuirass. The frame was entirely of iron, and the velvet, which decorated the exterior hid a frightful and cumbersome machine. This state of things, so detrimental to health and the cause of so much personal inconvenience, not to say torture, could not last long, and the artisans of those days contrived to give more pliability and lightness to the metal, and prepared the way by degrees for whalebone. But, as reformers are always slow, the cold iron continued to clasp the warm hearts of the fair wearera for a long time in its embrace, and even contrives to the present day, under the name of busk—and who can blame its pertinacity P The corset found favor in the eyes of Louis XIV. In the following reign the corset was threatened with banishment from the toilet. Fashion took a rural and simple turn, and was almost guided by the taste of Boucher, in whose pictures many of the Court celebrities figure as shepherds and shepherdesses. But the painter departed, find fashion returned to the prim eccentricities of the former times. During the revolution the corsets were again forgotten, and under the directory it was completely interdicted by the fashionable world. The belles of the day took a classic turn, the Boman dress— the toga, sandal, etc. The empire dethroned the classic fashion, but without taking the corset in favor. High waists were in i'avor, and la mode revealed a taste certainly the reverse of prudery. With the fall of the empire fell also the waist, and then came also, as a necessity,.the return of the corset.