Identifier: welldressedwoma00ecob (find matches)
Title: The well-dressed woman: a study in the practical application to dress of the laws of health, art, and morals
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Ecob, Helen Gilbert
Subjects: Women's clothing Women
Publisher: New York, Fowler & Wells Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Fig. 38.—Steel Apparatus. ately followed the French Revolution, when thegeneral licentiousness of manners and morals wasaccompanied by a corresponding indecency indress. Such a statement is a misrepresentation THE PEDIGREE OF THE CORSET. 103 of history. The French Revolution grew out ofthe selfishness and extravagance of the privilegedclasses. There had been years of wanton splendorin her palaces, and the price was an impoverishedand discontented people. Among the frivolities of
Text Appearing After Image:
LADY OF THE
COURT OF
QUEEN CATHERINE DE MEDICI
Fig. 39.

the eighteenth century were the powdered hair and
the "patch-fashion." Ladies carried bits of court-
plaster in patch-boxes and stopped even in the
street to glance at the mirror in the lid of the
patch-box and replace any which might have
fallen. As the climax approached, gayety and
frivolity increased. "Every one was dressed as if


104 THE WELL-DRESSED WOMAN.

for a fancy ball that was never to leave off. The
executioner was required to officiate at the gallows


FIG.–40 Henry III.

and wheel frizzled, powdered, in a gold-lace coat,
pumps, and white silk stockings." (Carlyle.) The

THE PEDIGREE OF THE CORSET. 105

Medici corset was still worn. Rousseau said of the
tight dress of this period : "I cannot but think that
this abuse, pushed in England to an inconceivable
point, will in the end lead to the degeneracy of the
race."
When the reaction against centuries of civil and
ecclesiastical oppression began to be felt, the de-
sire for liberty showed itself even in dress. It was

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