Left:

Corset No. 234, ca. 1895-1899

Silk satin, metal

R&G Corset Company, American

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Stone     1972.c.386

Petticoat, ca. mid 1890s

Silk taffeta, silk velvet ribbon

American

Gift of Mrs. George Ullman     1972.c.548

Right:

Corset, c.1900

silk, metal

Warner's, American, founded 1874

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Stone     1972.c.387

Chemise, c. 1900

cotton, silk satin ribbon

American

Gift of Mrs. Connie McMullen     1970.c.105.a

Petticoat, c. 1900

silk, cotton lace

B. Altman & co., American, founded 1865

Gift of an anonymous donor     00.00.FD.3

"The . . .corset is a world, a composition, a work of art, a strategic plan. It is also the key to the understanding of society. It is by the corset that a girl becomes a woman, it is the change in corset that marks the stages of her initiation into social life. By changing her corset, a woman undergoes a necessary change of identity."

-David Kunzle, Fashion and Fetishism, 1982

The bridal trousseau was an important part of a woman's preparations for her new role as wife, and the corset was an integral component of the trousseau. From its introduction into fashion in the seventeenth century, the corset has served not as covering for the natural figure of woman, but as a way to mold her body into a more erotic form. The corset-cuirasse, or hourglass, shape came into fashion in the mid 1870s. A period in which fashionable dress tightly hugged a woman's hips. This silhouette emphasized the fashion for tight lacing of the corset.

The remarkable delicateness and intricacy of this corset and petticoat are especially surprising in that they are both ready-to-wear garments. Improvements in the sewing machine and the rise of the department store in the late 1860s were instrumental in making ready-made garments widely available in the last half of the nineteenth century. The rustle of elegant petticoats filled the streets of New York's Ladies Mile where B. Altman had its "Palace of Trade".

The colors and ornamentation of the black corset on the left are intended to be erotic. Although similar examples exist in other costume collections, corsets that lace as small as the eighteen-inch waist circumference of this one are extremely rare.

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