Corset Restrictions

One of the greatest restrictions placed on women has been corsetry. Severe lacing restricts movement and can damage internal organs and impair health. Female emancipators of the early 20^th century used pictures which showed the position of the female internal organs with and without corsetry. Pictures of deformed rib cages were also used illustrate how breathing was impaired. They used the evidence to support their arguments for condemning the corset. There is considerable thought that such images of wasp waist were enhanced by artistic licence.

Small waists did exist, but were usually on young girls and needed 'training'. Today when women take to corsets it can take about 2 years to achieve a gradually smaller waist using lacing methods. Goths are very fond of corsets in their fashion style.

Right - The unnatural hourglass figure.

Typical images used in medical books and which suggested a woman's internal organs before and after restraining in tight corsetry in the Victorian era. Please note that even the Victorians were capable of manipulating pictures to their own end if it served a purpose.
Recent medical examinations of females corseted today in actual Victorian corsets show how the women had no energy and lacked breath when given lung tests. Once the corset was undone the women felt energised again.

The test is not a fair test as women did not simply lace immediately to a 16 inch waist, they trained the waist over a period of years. Over 2 years a 22 inch waist can be gradually reduced to a handspan by gradual increments of the lacing. It would take about a year of not wearing a corset for the internal organs to settle back to the natural position. But back they would go.

20th Century Modern Shoes

Although foot binding seems cruel in the 21^st century, modern shoes frequently deform the foot. Shoe lasts often show an evenly pointed shape around which modern shoes are built. The foot that fits the shoe made from a pointed last should have its big toe in the middle, flanked by two smaller toes on either side. Platform shoes which elongate the leg, but place the wearer in danger of ankle twisting, have come in and out of fashion several times in the last fifty years.

In the 1990s a famous incident occurred with platform soles, when Naomi Campbell slipped during Vivienne Westwood's fashion show whilst Miss Campbell was wearing very high platform shoes.
Left - A platform shoe by Vivienne Westwood.

Head Flattening, Elongation and Lip Stretching

Moulding of the skull and the practice of head flattening was common among Mayan society and has been used in Eastern countries. Protuberances such as the nose, ears and forehead were flattened to conform to the cultural beauty ideal. The head was flattened by putting the new born infant's head between two wooden boards creating a mouse trap like cradle, held in place with bindings. The soft skull slowly moulded to the cultural beauty ideal of flatness and after a few years the boards were removed permanently.

Elongated heads have been as popular as flattened heads. A Congo woman with an elongated head would be thought very beautiful by her people.

Similarly a Chad woman would have had her lips supported and stretched by metal rings since early childhood. In adulthood her stretched lips would express the ultimate in beauty. Western society has not gone quite this far, but it is now fashionable for some women to have collagen injections and implants to enlarge the lips.

Extremes include plastic surgery where the lips are turned inside out and although some find this an attractive feature on a woman, many do not and are repulsed by it.

Body and Breast Enhancement

Body image can be adapted to accommodate changing fashions. In the 1920s some women endured breast reductions so they could wear the flat boyish fashions. By the 1930s the breast in all its glory was soon back in fashion. The fuller the bosom the better. Expensive surgical enlargement was often done for people such as actresses, but not talked about much. More recently the silhouette from various angles has been manipulated even more by cosmetic surgery.

Nowadays people with ordinary incomes view breast enlargement as their right to satisfy emotional and fashionable needs. People of every age group have become obsessed by their body image. Older teenage girls particularly favour breast implants. Liposuction, tummy tucks, nose jobs, lip manipulation and implants for fuller breasts have all become popular in search of the ideal silhouette.

Cosmetic Surgery

In the Western world the outlines of women's bodies have been controlled by corsetry and petticoat constructions. But now many consumers have their figure faults corrected by cosmetic surgery with implants or liposuction fat reduction. Plastic surgery was originally developed thousands of years ago in India for treating injuries and birth defects. Then just over a century ago in 1885 when local anaesthetics were invented, surgeons began performing various cosmetic operations.

In 1901 the first face lift was done by Eugene Hollander of Berlin. The wealthy liked face lifts. A face lift meant they could actually buy some youth, even though the body cells were ageing.

Body Image

This page looks at how different societies view the body silhouette, the body image as ugly or beautiful. It examines some of the ways individuals have manipulated their body image, to gain the cultural ideal of an era.
Fashion history shows the most desirable body image of a fashion era is most often achieved by distorting the figure by enlargement or reduction, or by flattening or moving parts into new positions.