Suffering for beauty: The tyranny of underwear

And we thought Spanx was constricting.  Keeping all our sins of overindulgence in reins, it did flatter our figures but was still something we would joyfully remove in liberation at the end of an evening of putting our best artificial silhouette forward. But when we saw the exhibit  “La Mécanique des Dessous, une Histoire Indiscrète de la Silhouette” (The Mechanisms of Undergarments, an Inquisitive History of the figure) at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, we felt very lucky indeed. 

This exhibition of undergarments from the 14th century onwards shows some very bizarre contraptions which seem to be more suited for the torture chamber than the dressing room. Following the dictates of la mode, they fashioned the body by means of metal, whalebones, hoops and cushions, sometimes remodeling it to extremes just to enable the wearer to attain the ideal of beauty at the time.   

The medieval bliaud, which appeared as early as the 12th century, was a long garment that had laces to support and raise the breasts.  By the 16th century, the emphasis on the chest had vanished and the feminine form had to be more restrained — an iron-hinged, armor-like corset was worn to flatten the torso and create a smooth outline beneath the gowns.  Although holes made them lighter, the metal undergarments were still too heavy except for the aristocracy and royalty who did not have to do as much physical exertion.   The use of this corset influenced Italian and English ladies as seen in paintings of Venetian and Elizabethan women wearing structured bejeweled gowns. The portrait of Elizabeth I at the National Portrait Gallery in London depicts her with a long, boyish, flattened torso.  Catherine de Medici, queen consort of France (1547-1559), supposedly frowned upon anyone with a thick waist.  She thereupon introduced the iron corset to the French court so that her ladies-in-waiting can have a fashionable 13-inch waist.  The metal corsets actually worked as bulletproof vests as well, with knife attacks a common cause for concern at that time. There were also medical uses — to straighten a disproportioned figure or support the torso during times of illness.  The corset of the late 16th century is more recognizable to us today, made of fabric and using whalebone, bone, wood and pliable steel. 

As if the corset was not cumbersome enough, the lower part of the body was not spared, thanks to the farthingale, called the vertugado in Spain where it originated. This hoop skirt consisted of frames of concentric circles made of metal, rope, ociers or whalebone worn underneath a humongous skirt.

If the flat-chested, boyish torso was de rigueur for Renaissance women, for men it was the padded belly and the ample crotch.  Doublets, the jackets then, would be constructed to have a pronounced “peascod belly,” much like a beer belly which would be so unsexy today but was so desirable at that time. For a full crotch, a codpiece was used. This padded metal pouch was attached to the trousers with strings or buttons, accentuating the genital area for that look of virility. For further emphasis, the size of the codpiece was made larger and more elaborate with the addition of decoration.

Even children were not spared from these body-altering garments. From the 17th century, children were made to wear corsets for support and to ensure proper development of their bodies.  In medieval times, babies had swaddling clothes, much like a straitjacket of bandages virtually turning the child into a mummy. This practice persisted until the 19th century in some parts of Eastern Europe.

With the advent of the Rococo style in the 1700s, women’s fashion became more sumptuous, elaborate and intricate. The undergarments naturally followed suit. Panniers or side hoops in rattan and metal were needed to extend the width of the court dress skirts at the sides while keeping the front and back relatively flat, providing a wide panel where woven patterns and intricate embroidery could be displayed and fully appreciated. By mid-century the court dress had developed into the robe a la française which was so wide that a woman wearing it would take up to three times more space than a man. This restricted her movement considerably, making it necessary to enter sideways when going through doors or boarding carriages.  It became a bit easier later on when retractable hoops were invented.

In the 1800s, the female figure was enhanced again with corsets that mercilessly tightened the waist and pushed the chest up and out at the top.  A scene from the film Gone With the Wind illustrates this perfectly: Scarlett O’Hara, played by Vivien Leigh, clutches to a bedpost for dear life as her maid pulls fiercely at the strings of her corset. More attention was drawn to the lower part of the body, however, with huge bell skirts requiring layers upon layers of petticoats with down-filled pads or crinolines stiffened with horsehair. Just imagine how uncomfortable and unhygienic this was in the summer! Lighter experimental versions had to be invented including one that was inflated using bellows. This tedious invention was naturally met with ridicule, however, until finally a cage crinoline with spring steel hoops came into the picture as the most practical alternative.

Of course there was nothing practical at all about the bell skirts to begin with. Aside from difficulty in maneuvering through doors, they were accident prone — catching fire, getting caught in machinery, sweeping off delicate china and crystal at stores and gatherings, among other mishaps.  They finally grew out of favor in the second half of the century when the skirts flattened in the front and sides with just the back protruding in the form of a bustle. Made of a framework of rattan or steel hoops attached below the waist, the bustle emphasized the buttocks and kept the skirt from dragging.  It still made sitting very difficult.

It was only in the 20th century when women were liberated from the constraints of the corsets and crinolines with fashions that were made for the modern, active woman. The more comfortable brassiere, mass-produced in 1912, was a welcome relief.  But far from disappearing, constraining undergarments took new forms.  The straight-shaped flapper dresses from 1915 to 1925 required a reducing bra particularly for those who were well endowed. The compression of the chest allowed them to fit into the fashion of the period.

Corsetry returned in 1947, however, with Dior’s New Look revolution, which celebrates a narrow waist and rounded bust.  The bra also turned into a new form of corsetry with whalebone and framework emerging in the cups. It was only in the ’60s when women were liberated again with the spirit of emancipation in the air and the rise of the skinny, androgynous woman represented by Twiggy and Jane Birkin. With the new textiles, lightness and invisibility became possible in fashion.  The elasticity and smoothness of lycra, for example, reduced the border between underwear and clothing, perfect for the girlish styles and mini dresses. 

The ’80s marked the era of power dressing and women were wearing huge shoulder pads underneath sculptured “V” shaped tops, emulating the masculine ideal.  British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was an icon of the power woman in a man’s world wearing shoulder-padded blazers. They became even more popular when the hit TV series Dynasty featured glamorous women with the biggest shoulder-padded slinky dresses and suits wrestling their way to the top of the corporate world. These pads reached ridiculous proportions and even came with Velcro pads so they can be worn in multiples.

By the ’90s and Naughties the corset and the brassiere, formerly underwear, became outerwear.  Madonna’s satin corset and conical bra by Jean-Paul Gaultier for her 1990 “Blond Ambition” concert tour became an iconic image of that decade.  Comme des Garçons placed the pads outside the dress in the 1997 Bump Dress. In 2007 Thierry Mugler dressed a model in a single piece of metal, molded in the shape of a corset and farthingale, while Dolce & Gabbana had a futuristic metallic bustier-dress. The former objects of pain and tyranny became fetish items charged with eroticism.

The enhancement of the feminine figure with undergarments continued with the WonderBra. The brassiere caused a sensation in 1994 with its “Hello Boys” billboard starring supermodel Eva Herizgova wearing the bra which pushed her breasts up to dangerous heights, reportedly causing several male motorists to crash their cars on the highway. The men’s answer to the WonderBra came in 2007 with  WonderJock, the pushup underwear for men.  The emphasis on the crotch and its association with virility actually never went away since the codpiece days.  The 1948 Kangourou ad has an illustration of its underwear with a prominent front, announcing “Finally a manly slip!” Calvin Klein’s underwear ads in 1993 had the rapper Marky Mark grabbing his genitals, lending credence to the assertion of Wolfgang Fritz Haug that “the purchase of underwear is triggered by the desire to enhance the penis.”

Does dressing then all boil down to seduction and making ourselves desirable for sex? Will we really go to great lengths and endure unbearable suffering, or at least discomfort, just to be alluring and clad in the fashion of the day? The undergarments of the past centuries may be ludicrous today but are we any less guilty of drastically altering our bodies for fashion? With plastic surgery, liposuction, fillers, stem cells, dieting and endless hours at the gym at our disposal, aren’t we virtually wearing invisible corsets and codpieces?