'Fighting The Corsetless Evil': Shaping Corsets And Culture, 1900-1930

133. For semiotic analysis of fashion as a system of signification see Roland Barthes, The Fashion System, translated by Matthew Ward and Richard Howard (New York, 1983). For an excellent discussion of many of the major twentieth-century works of fashion history and theory see Fred Davis, Fashion, Culture and Identity (Chicago, 1992).

(5.) Elizabeth Ewing, Dress and Undress: A History of Women's Underwear (New York, 1978), pp. 110-113.

(6.) Havelock Ellis, "An Anatomical Vindication of the Straight Front Corset," Current Literature, February 1910, pp. 172-174.

(7.) "How Prehistoric Woman Solved the Problem Of Her Waist Line," Current Opinion, March, 1914, pp. 201-202.

(8.) Paul Poiret, My First 50 Years, pp. 72-73.

(9.) Ewing, pp. 89-91, 93, 108-110; C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington, The History of Underclothes (London, 1981,1951), pp. 87,114, 125-6; Norah Waugh, Corsets and Crinolines (London, 1954), p.87. See Peter Wollen, "Our of the Past: Fashion/Orientalism/The Body," in his Raiding the icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture (Bloomington, 1993), pp. 1-34 regarding the influence of both the Russian Ballet and the rational dress movement upon Poiret's designs. Fashion layouts and advertisements, such as "New Low Bust Flexible Model" and "New Supple Figure Corsets," Women's and Infants' Furnisher, January 1914, pp. 42-43 and "The Athletic Girl's Experience," Bon Ton Corset advertisement, Vogue, May 1914, p. 93, displayed the more flexible and sports corsets.

(10.) Ewing, p. 120; Mitchel Gray and Mary Kennedy, The Lingerie Book (New York), 1980, p. 15. "A Graceful Dancing Corset," Women's and infants' Furnisher, February 1914, p.31. Banner, p. 176 offers evidence regarding the emergence of the flapper in the mid-1910s; "Where Efficiency and Economy Meet," Vogue, April 1914, pp. 54-55. "Corseting the Corsetless Figure," Vogue, January 1914, p. 58.

(11.) "Woman Decides to Support Herself," Vogue, August 1917, pp. 67, 80.

(12.) See Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States (Cambridge, 1959, 1975) and Linda Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America (New York, 1977) regarding the suffrage and birth control movements respectively. The New York Times reported extensively on the fashion debates. For example, see August 30, 1922, p. 17 regarding the skirt length controversy; see January 17, 1919, p. 5; February 16, 1921, p. 15; February 17, 1921, p. 6; May 22, 1919, p. 9; May 23, 1921, p. 15; June 15, 1921, p. 7 and June 21, 1921, p. 19 regarding modesty and morality; and February 26, 1922, p. 12 regarding college dress codes.

(13.) Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (New York, 1980), pp. 366-372.

(14.) My grandmother, Mildred Rosensrein Schwartz (1902-1998), on many occasions provided me with historical data drawn from her life experience; "The Renaissance of the C-rs-t", The Independent, July 25, 1925, p. 88.

(15.) Corsets & Lingerie first identified corsetlessness as dangerous in "Buyers Against Corsetless Fad: New York Department Store Buyers All Against Fad and Say It Is On the Wane," Corsets & Lingerie, September 1921, p. 27, 29. The first assertion that it was also evil can be found in "The Evils of the No-Corset Fad," Corsets & Lingerie, November 1921, pp. 24-25. Corsets & Lingerie, January 1924, p.31 and Women's Wear Daily, September 24, 1924, p. 28 identify the fad's beginning date. Nicole Thornton, Poiret (New York, 1979), p. 1; Poiret, My First Fifty Years, pp., 72-73); Julian Robinson, Body Packaging: A Guide to Human Sexual Display (Los Angeles), 1988, p. 78. "Corseting the Corsetless Figure," p. 58; "Tango Popularizes Corserless Figure," The Women's and Infants' Furnisher, January, 1914, p. 68; Anderman Form Company advertisement, Women's and Infants' Furnisher, February, 1915, p. 20. The Women's and Infants' Furnisher, first published in 1895, changed its name to Corsets & Lingerie in July, 1921, and then again to Corsets & Brassieres in March, 1926. Its publication continues today under the name Intimate Fashion News.