What We Wore and How We Wore It
PHOTO: Contact sheet by Eadweard Muybridge. Phototype printed in black ink, 1887.
This famous contact sheet by pioneering motion photographer Eadweard Muybridge reveals the many layers of undergarments that women wore in the late 1800s. Those layers included pantalets, petticoats, bloomers, bustles, corsets, and crinolines. Getting dressed and undressed used to be “an operation to be repeated several times a day so that one’s outfit would always be appropriate for the circumstances,” wrote French fashion curator Catherine Ormen in “French Lingerie: 19th – 21st Century.” These were the height of Victorian times, when women couldn't vote, own a bank account, or straddle a horse cowboy-style (never mind easily liberate themselves from the vice grip of their husbands).
The corset was barely mentioned again until recently, 150+ years later, when celebs like Kim Kardashian started snapping selfies in so-called waist-trainers. Now, as the New York Times recently wrote in The Corset Stays the Course (and as all lingerie fashionistas know), the "corset aesthetic" is experiencing a renaissance: whalebones are out, but steel boning and gut-sucking top-to-bottom lacing are in. Are bustles, bonnets, and crinolines right around the corner?
![](/image/f41a59ce558c5fb4119e0b99e07427e4_image.jpg)
This famous contact sheet by pioneering motion photographer Eadweard Muybridge reveals the many layers of undergarments that women wore in the late 1800s. Those layers included pantalets, petticoats, bloomers, bustles, corsets, and crinolines. Getting dressed and undressed used to be “an operation to be repeated several times a day so that one’s outfit would always be appropriate for the circumstances,” wrote French fashion curator Catherine Ormen in “French Lingerie: 19th – 21st Century.” These were the height of Victorian times, when women couldn't vote, own a bank account, or straddle a horse cowboy-style (never mind easily liberate themselves from the vice grip of their husbands).
The corset was barely mentioned again until recently, 150+ years later, when celebs like Kim Kardashian started snapping selfies in so-called waist-trainers. Now, as the New York Times recently wrote in The Corset Stays the Course (and as all lingerie fashionistas know), the "corset aesthetic" is experiencing a renaissance: whalebones are out, but steel boning and gut-sucking top-to-bottom lacing are in. Are bustles, bonnets, and crinolines right around the corner?
![](/image/f41a59ce558c5fb4119e0b99e07427e4_image.jpg)
October 22, 2015