A Correct View of the New Machine for Winding up the Ladies (1830)
In the 1830s, the artificially inflated shoulders and skirts made for good satire
A woman is turning a wheel which is tightening the string around a girl's waist in order to make it smaller.
The corset has been an indispensable supportive undergarment for women, in Europe for several centuries, evolving as fashion trends have changed and being known, depending on era and geography, as bodies, stays and corsets. The appearance of the garment represented a change from people wearing clothes to fit their bodies to changing the shape of their bodies to fit their fashionable clothing.
The corset became less constricting with the advent of the high-waisted empire style (around 1796) which de-emphasized the natural waist. Some form of corset was still worn by most women of the time but these were often "short stays" (i.e. they did not extend very far below the breasts). By contrast, corsets intended to exert serious body-shaping force (as in the Victorian era) were "long" (extending down to and beyond the natural waist), laced in back, and stiffened with boning.
When the waistline returned to its natural position during the 1830s, the corset reappeared and served the dual purpose of supporting the breasts and narrowing the waist. However, it had changed its shape to the hourglass silhouette that is even now considered typical both for corsets and for Victorian fashion. At the same time, the term corset was first used for this garment in English. In the 1830s, the artificially inflated shoulders and skirts made the intervening waist look narrow, even with the corset laced only moderately.
By the 1830s, steel stays had begun to replace the classic whalebone. The diarist Emily Eden recorded that she had to obtain a silver "husk" before accompanying her brother to India because a humid climate rusted the usual steel and spoilt the garment. In 1839, a Frenchman by the name of Jean Werly made a patent for women's corsets made on the loom. This type of corset was popular until 1890: when machine-made corsets gained popularity. As seen in various fashion advertisements of the era, the common corset cost one dollar ($1). Before this, all corsets were handmade - and, typically, home-made. ~ Wikipedia
Publication/Creation: London (26 Haymarket where Political and other caricatures are daily Pub) : Thos. McLean.
Physical description: 1 print : etching, with watercolour ; image 24 x 36 cm
Creator: Coloured etching by W. Heath, ca. 1830.. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Source: Wellcome Collection