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THE

FAMILY DOCTOR

AND PEOPLE'S MEDICAL ADVISER.

No. 244. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1889 PRICE ONE PENNY

INTERESTING TO LADIES.

DOES TIGHT LACING EXIST?

INTERVIEWS WITH WEST END CORSET MAKERS. -- WHAT THEY THINK AND SAY. -- " YES, CERTAINLY." -- A TAPER FIGURE. -- AMERICAN WOMEN. -- "THE AUSTRIANS KNOW HOW TO LACE."

"I SHALL be pleased, Madam, to give you any information I can, if you will kindly not mention our firm, as, you understand, the principals would not like it, nor our customers. I know two or three of the funny ones would be fancying I had told you heaps of things that I probably shan't."

With these preliminaries we plunged into the subject which someone recently stated to be one of "national importance." Our first interview was with the leading assistant of a firm not a hundred miles from Regent-street, whose slender figure and healthy looks must prove a good advertisement for the much-abused article which was lying around us in all shapes, colours, and sizes.

"Yes, undoubtedly tight lacing is on the increase. During the summer the loose blouse bodices rather hid the fact, but if our order-book and my experience of nine years is to be trusted, waists will be smaller than ever this season. Of course a lot of nonsense has been talked, and the correspondence in two papers (one a Society one), all of which I have read, has, as far as I can see, only led to smaller stays."

What would you think, the average waist in the upper and rich middle classes ?" " Well, I think for the upper class twenty-one to twenty-two inches, and for the rich middle-class perhaps a little less. No, not smaller . You know that is very small for the average; the natural waist would average 27-28 inches, so, you see all, or rather most, women pinch more or less."

"Oh, no! I'm not offended. My own waist is not quite seventeen, and I've laced a good deal smaller than that. I will call Miss J--, one of our assistants, before you go ; you shall see her's."

" Do I think lacing hurtful? What a funny question to ask me; but I will answer honestly. No, not moderate lacing. I don't think there are many ladies, and certainly no young ones (except the very stout or very delicate) who could not keep their waists at Eighteen or nineteen inches without trouble. Of course lacing to thirteen or fourteen inches is a different matter altogether." " Excuse me. Do you mean to say that such sizes as those are possible? "

"Oh, dear, yes! We have three young ladies, two are at school at Brompton, who have their corsets made with thirteen·inch waist measure, and I suppose we have eight or ten, more than half rich manufacturers' wives or daughters, who confine themselves to fourteen inches. They begin young : in fact, it is now quite usual for little girls of ten or eleven to wear real, stiffly-boned corsets like their elders in miniature. This pair is for the Hon. Mrs. D--'s little girl; she is twelve. They are just as carefully made-look at the stitching-as her mother's. They are nineteen inches in the waist." They were of satin, beautifully made, very stiffly whaleboned, and, except as to size, as my informant said, just like a grown woman's corset.

"There have," continued my informant, " been a great many letters published concerning tight lacing in schools. Where there are a lot of young ladies there is sure to be a" little twitching of stay-laces, and, 'of course, where one begins there are sure to be some who follow. I think the statements have been very much exaggerated. We have a very large clientelle, especially amongst what are called 'finishing schools,' and I only know three or four where very tight·lacing is anything like general, and only one where the young ladies (of course with their parents' consent and wish) are encouraged in it, and that school is out Brompton-way." " We don't, as a rule, keep anything under

seventeen inches in stock, and. as we make principally to order, we only keep the. best French and Viennese styles ready-made. The corset you noticed in the window-:he green satin one-is fifteen inches, and a sample of our own making. For a full figure I will call Miss J--."

Miss J-- soon made her appearance, and proved to be a tall, nice-looking young lady, rather, but by no means excessively, pale, and almost the first thing we noticed was her figure, which either in Queen Anne's time-when, if we can believe the prints and diarist, waists were often constricted to thirteen inches by, the fashionable beauties of the day-- or in the Victorian era, would serve for a model of slenderness and elegance according to fashionable tastes. Although measuring but fourteen inches, there was a suppleness about her waist that added much to her grace of figure.

"Oh! no, madame," she remarked, in reply to my query, "now I am used to it I really like tight, lacing. Of course I was very uncomfortable, and stooping about much is impossible even now, without very considerable discomfort, but our business doesn't require it, I have ,been here in London five years now, and have worn my waist at its' present 'size three years, and my health is as good as ever. “

"You' don't think even very tight lacing injurious then ?"

" No, certainly not, as far as my experience goes. Half the ill-health that is attributed to it--consumption, colds and such things--are, I am certain, more from the wearing of insufficient underclothing than tightly-laced corsets. What do you say, Miss S--?"

Miss S-- agreed.

" Of course, with a waist as small as mine one cannot wear a heap of thick underthings, they must fit well; and then you can wear quite sufficient, and have no need to go about, like some of our smallest-waisted clients, with next door to nothing on under their dresses." Miss S -- informed us that the smallest pair of corsets they had made lately were fourteen inches, and that there was undoubtedly a large and increasing sale of the sizes from sixteen inches up to nineteen inches. We took another look round; inspected some of the different anti newest shapes, by means of which we women seek to charm, an admiring glance at Miss J ---'s slenderness as she returned to the mysteries of the inner room, and then after thanking Miss S -- for her kindness, started further west, to interview Madame E-- upon the engrossing subject.

Luckily madame was in, and "would see the lady in a few minutes."

The room was evidently one of Madame E--'s show rooms, and contained plenty to pass the time away. Besides numberless boxes

VOL. X,

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