Just 50 yrs before the time of this ad, we had the wasp-waisted belle aka Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With the Wind), and her 16-inch waistline. Aaarghhh! I measured my KNEE, it's 18 inches! Of course, the figure was also "comely bosomed, and shapely hipped". In fact, surgical removal of the lower ribs was a not-uncommon procedure amongst the idle and bored rich of the mid-19th century, with numerous mechanical contraptions invented to help lace and corset the poor victim into such an unnatural shape.

Men were not immune to fashionability; whalebone corsets and cummerbunds were popular "gutbusters" of the day.

A century before this even, in the mid-1700's, hips were in, busts were out. Formal women's gowns were hooped and boned and shaped so wide at the hip, most genteel ladies were instructed to enter doors sideways, to accomodate the bulky skirts. The bosom, meanwhile, was squashed flat as a pancake. God, I was born 2 centuries too late. Damn! I hate that!

Doreen