Hello!
I'm fabrickind, a queer cosplayer and cosplay educator based in Seattle who has been cosplaying and making costumes since 2003. My greatest passion in the community is providing resources and teaching to other cosplayers.
I'm also @fabrickind on most other social media.
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no really, squeeze it. Does it feel like it’s got sand in it? is’s sharpening sand. Stab the tip of your needle into it back and forth and it’ll help put a sharp edge back on a pin or needle that’s been blunted by use, or has a little bit of rust on it. It can’t fix anything worse then a little of either, and won’t work on something REALLY blunted, but its a lifesaver.
It may seem like it should be a pepper, since that would go better with the flavour of a tomato (and the mass produced modern ones are admittedly more pepper shaped), but it is and has always been a strawberry.
Here are some antique emery strawberries, which are much more strawberry shaped, and some of them have seeds.
(source)
(source)
(Home Needlework Magazine, 1899)
And it's for cleaning needles, not sharpening them. I can't imagine how jamming a blunt needle point around in a bunch of loose grit could possibly sharpen it in any significant way, and all the historical sources I've seen only talk about cleaning.
"Every sewer's work basket or work box should contain an emery bag, as shown in Fig. 2, through which to push a needle when it becomes rough, squeaks, or sticks in the material. An emery bag is usually shaped like a strawberry and consists of a rough denim bag filled with emery powder, which is a very hard material used for polishing metals. Such a bag may be purchased for 5 or 10 cents in any store that sells sewing materials. Needles often become rusted from the perspiration of the hands or from being left in damp places. The beginner may use a small emery bag to remove rust; or, a small piece of emery paper may be used instead."
-Woman's Institute Reference Library, 1916.
"Use an emery whenever your needle does not slip through the cloth easily."
-The Improvement of Educational Administration in Massachusetts, 1916.
"An emery bag is inexpensive and is useful to keep needles polished and smooth. If the hands perspire and it is difficult to push the needle through the cloth, running the needle through the emery will relieve the condition."
-Boys' and Girls' Clothing Club, 1915.
"It was very hot to sit and sew. The needle would get sticky in spite of all the little emery strawberry could give it, and Beth's fingers had never felt so clumsy and uncomfortable."
-The Unitarian Register, 1908.
"She polished her needles to nothing, pushing them in and out of the emery strawberry, but they always squeaked."
-Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1910.
This patent from 1873 mentions an emery slab for sharpening pins, which is quite different from a cushion, and which sounds like it actually would work for sharpening.
"C is a slab of emery or other sharp and fine grit, for sharpening needles or pins"
Then later down the page it also says
"E is an emery cushion, secured in the body of the holder A, and is used for polishing needles and keeping them smooth."
So. Strawberry for cleaning. Not pepper for sharpening.
Gentle reminder - modern sewing tools are made from treated or plated metal, or stainless steel. In terms of human civilisation, this is a wild advance of technology. Needles are some of our oldest tools; rust was formerly ubiquitous, and attacked every form of everyday metal. A rusty needle tears fabric, or worse, stains it. The luxury and technology of rustproof needles and pins - forgotten in a few generations of human memory - and yet it is remembered in the strawberry. Memory is stored in the strawberry!
A Guide and Walkthrough to Making Belle's Blue Dress in OUAT
Last December, I attended the Paris OUAT con in this Belle Blue Dress cosplay I made completely by myself, which leads to this AMAZING photo I had with Emilie de Ravin (mother is GORGEOUS and so kind and nice in person by the way)
Since I had a lot of trial and errors when making this outfit I want to share my process just in case that it might help anybody who wants to make this too in the future!
Disclaimer:
this is actually my first serious attempt at full character cosplay! I am mainly a historical fashion and costume design enthusiast (heavy on enthusiast I have no professional training in fashion design or sewing whatsoever!!), which means my cosplay principle (which I guess is definately different to everyone) is actually how to 'improve' costumes from shows by combining historical and modern methods when constructing them and by giving them a more historical silhouette.
I will be honest in first saying I am actually not a big fan of the original costumes from OUAT personally -- especially the fabric choices and VERY MIXED AND MATCH silhouettes from very different historical periods that I don't think neccesarily make sense, even with the jumbo stories that is OUAT... I do understand why they are the way they are though for reasons like budget. But this is why I wasn't making Belle's dress to be exactly like the show version and was altering the design to my personal taste.
I also want to make 'cosplay costumes' into things I can actually wear in my daily life, so I will also focus on the practicality of the costumes I make. I think it's very important to figure out what your personal goal/aim with the cosplay garments before you started!! For example, if you don't want to wear this dress in real life and only want it for photoshoots there's a lot of procedure in my tutorial that you can just skip through and that's totally valid!
Lastly, the entire dress (skirt + bodice) can be done with only handsewing if you don't have a machine. I actually did get a sewing machine at the start of making this dress but I have been handsewing for about three years before this and even with the machine I'm still constructing the garment with a very historical-handsewing mindset.
Okay long disclaimer finally over!!! Let's get into it.
First let's look at the show design:
Reading the following tutorial you will realize I did not actually complete all the cosplay compotnents from the show design, and the reason is... due to poor time management (yes I am diagnosed with ADHD nobody is surprised) I actually started making everything like 10 days before the paris convention I RAN OUT OF TIME but here's the tutorial for all the steps anyway just in case you my dear readers actually know how to manage your time when doing a project...
1.White Blouse/Chemise
I was going to make this but for reasons above I ended up wearing a long-sleeve nightgown I thrifted from Ebay that has a similar neckline shape for the convention but here's a breakdown anyway!
This is definately not a historical look, and it appears to be a one piece blouse underneath.
To make the show version, the pattern may look something similar to this ugly doodle I have here!
The show accurate fabric you should be looking for is Broderie Anglaise (100%cotton), something like this: https://www.dalstonmillfabrics.co.uk/daisy-wheel-scalloped-edge-cotton-embroidered-anglaise-white.html
however, this is not the nicest fabric to work with, and if you want to cheat a bit, the search word 'dirndl blouse' on ebay is your friend!
To go for a more historical inspired vision, the neckline here is definately mimicing the neckline of tucking a garment called 'fichu' underneath your neckline, common in women's fashion in 17th century and 18th century and even 19th century (very loosely speaking, these 300 years also seems to be the very loosely speaking centuries of Belle's costume inspirations....)
There's tons of youtube tutorial outthere on how to make a fichu, and there are individual sellers on etsy selling these so I won't elaborate too much here, but to go for this look, you can wear a white chemise with the desired sleeve you want, and tuck in the fichu after you have put on your bodice and skirt.
and speaking of undergarments! let's go to the silhouette defining -
2. supportive undergaments:
I wore a corset for this look, which gave that nice shape of the bodice and supported the weight of my skirt and my pockets (more on those later). This made my layers to be: 1 very simple linen slip dress I made (please don't wear corset on your bare skin) + corset + the thrifted nightgown in substitute of the white blouse/chemise + 1 white cotton underskirt + blue bodice & blue skirt
However, from what I can see, the show layers are probably: 1 white blouse + blue bodice + 1 Farthingale or a bumroll + the blue skirt
A bumroll is basically a supportive garment that supports and holds the silhouette of the skirt at the hip, it's something that looks like this:
and will make the skirt looks like this
which is why I say the show version of the outfit definately has one underneath! I was going to wear one as well, they are quite easy to make and there are also people on etsy selling readymade ones, and yes the reason i did not wear one is my poor planning of time.....
but overall, a corset + a bumroll should give you a really nice silhouette (btw if you have the classic misconception that corsets are patriarchal torture tools...they are not! if you want to know more about this here's a great video: https://youtu.be/zNwTqanp0Aw?si=4J5Q6ZrAUdSD8Zoe
and Belle who has to work as a maid and do heavy labour everyday would definately wear one....)
finally, let's go to the juicy part after all these yapping from mine I'm really sorry I have no idea how to be concise.
3. the Blue Bodice:
fabric choice: linen, definately linen, this would be the historical choice and it just looks good and so easy to clean I'm literally linen 's number 1 fan. I think they used linen for the show version too, but sometimes I zoom in and think are those actually linen or are they really denim....
and yes I am aware that linen fabric can be quite pricey, but they are so worth it and sometimes you can find great deals on ebay by searching 'linen fabric remnant', I did buy mine new (during black friday), and I bought four metres in total for the bodice and the skirt and I still have quite a lot to spare.
If you are buying fabric online like me you should definately order sample beforehand, I picked my final fabric by comparing like 10 different samples of light blue linen, if you are also based in UK, I bought mine from Higgs & Higgs's website and they do free samples!
you also need some other fabric for the lining layer (do not skip this part!!! a good lining make so much difference in your final product), I just used calico which is one of the cheapest fabric outthere as most people use it for mockups (a trial run version of the garment to test your patterns and fit), calico is 100%cotton and it has the right kind of stiffness for this kind of lining I really recommend it.
If you don't want to draft the pattern completly from scratch by yourself, I recommend using an exisitng pattern like simplicity 3809 and butterick 4669, and alter it to your body shape and the ouat design:
(the blue line is the dart)
The main difference between these and the belle bodice would be that the belle bodice has a dart, and butterick 4669 (as well as most other bodice/corset top commercial pattern I've seen) has not:
which led me to create my own pattern like this:
I'm actually very new to pattern drafting myself so very sorry I can't produce a precise pattern for you guys to reference, and if you are also bad at pattern drafting like me, my method of altering from an existing pattern (mainly adding the dart and play with measurements) and make mock up and alter again and mock up again... has worked more or less for me!
and when you have your pattern ready, the assemble process would be to sew all the lining pieces together first, and then attach the bonings (very important for the final shape, even though I'm wearing a corset I still add those boning that's how important they are!!! I used synthetic whalebone which is the best material but they are quite pricey, you can use zipties or steel bonings, lots of corsetry tutorials out there have talked about this!), as for boning placements you can refer to the pattern above. I bought premade boning channels for this, so I sew the boning channels onto the lining layers first and then inserted the bonings.
(btw did I mention that it's very crucial to press your garments with iron every single step of the way?)
You can then make the outer layer with the blue linen fabric, which essentially is exactly the same as the inner one, when you are done, attach the two layers together and flip it over, and your finish would look so neat and tidy I'm not kidding:
I mean this could've been better but this is literally my first attempt at making a bodice/corset like garment and I finished this in less than 1 week I AM PROUD OF MYSELF!
and now let's talk about those brown bindings.
back to the show version again, I feel like they have either used suede or velvet, I literally cannot tell, and yes if you try to buy premade binding tape, it would be very hard to find look alike to this shade and texture (trust me I've tried), which means you should find a lookalike fabric and make the tapes yourselves, the fabric options would be: velvet, suede, corduroy, wool, linen, cotton canvas, and I would suggest to shop this fabric in person and bring your blue linen fabric because if you shop this online there's a very high chance the colour tones of the two won't match nicely.
I found two options in a fabric street in London, one is wool and one is corduroy, and I went for the wool because it matches the cold tone of my blue linen fabric better and also because wool is more rumplestiltskin themed!
this is the wool I chose, I basically just teared them into long strips and bind the bodice with it, I also used the wool thread I teared from this fabric to sew the base layer of my lacing holes.
Here's the cotton corduroy I end up not using for comparison:
After you have bound the blue bodice with your brown strips, you can finish the inside with cotton tapes, using felling stitches (which is what I did as you can see from the previous photos).
You can then use an awl or whatever other methods to make the lacing holes at the front, I made 10 pairs of lacing holes following the show version, however, I did not use metal gourmets as I like the hand embroideried lacing holes better and I can add my rumbelle elements this way too:
I use the wool thread I tear from the brown binding fabric as a base layer, and then i added another layer of gold thread (vintage japanese embroidery silk thread mixed with actual gold or gold toned silver I'm so rumbelle pilled I went insane) symbolizing the transformation of rumple's character. The sewing here is not my best but yes I was sewing this on the metro in paris and the night before convention I RAN OUT OF TIME)
Unlike the show version with its black lacing cords which honestly is quite ugly.... I used vintage french gold cords (again rumbelle made me crazy and broke)
and that's basically it for the bodice! Now onto the skirt!
The Blue Skirt
I think the show version just did a simple gathered skirt, however, I made a catridge pleat skirt, historical, looks great, and very easy to make!
I recommend these two great tutorials on how to make a catridge pleat skirt:
I didn't sew a pocket into this, instead, using a historical tied on pocket (which is actually seen on the blue dress variant of the disney live action beauty and the beast) but if you want to, sewing two pockets into the dress should be quite easy and simple.
I also french-seamed the entire skirt so the inside finishing is very secure
I use this very rumbelle themed blue silk + gold thread to do my pleating, and sew the button hole with the previously seen gold thread, and used a golden rose button for some more rumbelle elements.
after I finish the skirt, I start on the most special part of this cosplay, which is a rumbelle themed embroidered skirt bottom hem, (with all the crucial rumbelle elements!) designed by my good friend Fiona, the very very very talented @pinkantihistamine
Again, these embroideries are not the neatest because of the time issue I mentioned (and the fact that this is actually my first time doing serious embroidery on a garment....)
I printed out Fiona's design onto some sticky water soluble paper stabilizer (you can get them on amazon and everywhere, if you do embroidery and don't know about these you are missing out!!!) and cut them and stick them onto my skirt hem (and rinse them under water when all the embroderies are done)
And I use wool threads and yarns to embroider everything (they are so much better than embroidery flosses trust me!!! and yes again with the rumple wool theme)
I finish the entire 3 metres long skirt hem embroidery in three days while doing paris tourism, a round of applause for my suffering please....
btw because the linen fabric is stiff enough I didn't have to use an embroidery hoop (which made all the train and metro and bus embroidery a bit more easier bruh)
more close ups:
and that's the skirt done!!!
the final cosplay compotent I want to talk about are the shoes, these are what I wore to the paris con：
I found these on ebay after searching vintage teal pumps everyday for three months, these are not show accurate but the brown-gold is so rumple and the blue is so belle to me so I love them, if you want to go for the show accurate version, you should be looking for these:
The Everest in Black & Tan must be seen to be believed. Witness our in their full glory, and discover the sole for your soul at Fluevog tod
the all white version of the 'everest' model from John Fluevog shoes, the show painted the all white models blue for belle. From time to time people might be selling these on ebay so you have to keep an eye for it (And they are not the cheapest...)
Some other look alike would be this one from american duchess (again PRICEY)
Be utterly beguiling in Elsie Pumps! Meticulously reproduced from period originals, Elsie is accurate to 1890 through 1920. These step-in pu
if you want to make the belle shoes yourselves, I think the show takes inspirations mainly from 1930s women dancing shoes so you can start from there (as I said, the ouat historical inspirations are really all over the place), but I think some 17th century style slippers might look very nice for belle too.
If you are still reading, thank you so so much! I really do keep on yapping and this is actually my first attempt in writing a costume tutorial so I hope everything makes sense and if you have any questions do dm me or leave a comment! (I also did not proof read this at all so do excuse all the spelling errors...)
I also plan to make Belle's gold dress and her green cloak in the future so stay tuned!
There's only one more month until the Steel Ball Run anime premieres, so I’m celebrating by posting the first shot from my Diego Brando equestrian shoot! I’ll be sharing one photo every week as the anime airs (assuming its weekly).
Nice spreadsheet of crafting/sewing supply specific thrift stores!
The lady who made it has added an international tab for all the non-u.s. ones, which you can get to by clicking the "A1" arrow thingy in the upper left corner. You can also submit more if you know of any that aren't on the list.
None in my province yet, alas, but hopefully someday.
Found you via your Naoya cosplay (10/10 my boy 😭😭😭❤️💕).
And thought I’d ask if you could direct me to any resources for face contouring and crossplay makeup? I’m like super makeup stupid and not sure what products I should buy. Your face/makeup looks insanely good/goals in all your photos so I thought I’d ask.
Thank you very much!! I drew my basic routine and linked a few tutorials I have referenced throughout the years below. Hopefully this helps a bit, let me know if you have questions. I am by no means an expert but this is what has been working for me!
Full text tutorial under the cut !
steps:
Wash your face and use a moisturizer!
0. Face tape. I basically use medical tape to pull up the sides of my face and make my jawline sharper. (optional, I get lazy sometimes) Tutorial HERE from another cosplayer. I use an alcohol wipe on the areas I am putting the tape to remove oil and have it stick super well for a full con day.
1. Base Makeup: I use a poreless primer (haven't settled on a brand yet but hear good things about elf) and then let it sit for a few minutes, then use this color corrector by NYX for red or dark spots and cover my whole face with jung saem mool cusion foundation, going light around the eyes. Here is a tutorial on color correcting! Before using my current foundation I used a liquid foundation from NARS which is probably more available but if you are on a budget I also enjoy NYX products.
2. Liquid contour and highlight. Basically I contour under my jaw to make it sharper, at the sides of my nose up to my brow to make it more pronounced and sharp and ✧˖ikemen˖✧, under my cheek bones, and a bit below my lips. Don't forget to go under your jaw as well. For more gaunt characters I go heavy on the cheek contour but for pretty boys I go kinda light on this. I highlight my cheek bones, my chin, the center of my nose, and if the character doesnt have bangs, my forehead. THEN YOU HAVE TO BLEND IT.... please blend it. Here is a diagram I reference for a more masculine look. I use a contour and highlight stick from wet n wild for this step but I have no brand loyalty lol so use whatever works for you. This will not look super heavy and that is ok because you'll go in with powder, this is just for extra depth.
3. Powder foundation! I use maybelline matte fit me poreless powder foundation currently. Just straight up cover everything other than around your eyes to avoid creases, plus I use eye shadow here anyway.
4. Powder highlight and contour. I use this palette from Flower Knows because I like the cooler tones for contouring but a cheaper and more readily available option I used for a minute is this palette from NYX. I contour and highlight the areas listed in step 2 and blend it out again!
5. Eyebrows. This step is easier for me than it is for most people because I don't have eyebrows (I shave them), but if you do like most people, you'll either need to cover them before your base makeup or if you're cool with your natural brows you can leave them. I use eyeshadow in my desired color to draw my brows, usually in a shade slightly darker than my wig.
6. Eyeshadow....my nemesis. I want to say in advance that pinterest tutorials are MY BEST FRIEND and searching cosplay eyeshadow will get you great results. This is where you can get a bit creative with it but I have a basic dude eyeshadow routine I use if I don't have any specific colors I want to use. It consists of putting my lightest color, usually lighter than my skin tone, at the inner corner of my eyes, a light brown in the middle of my eyelid, and a dark brown near the outer lid and some below my eye. I also put dark brown in my crease to give my eyes more depth. Then I just blend it for a gradient and it helps me not look so flat. Here is a pinterest tutorial that is similar to what I do :) I really enjoy this elf palette in nude mood for basic eyeshadow. I have hooded eyes so I will OCCASIONALLY draw a double lid or use double eyelid tape but it depends on how I am feeling.
7. Eyeliner! This is also where you get to be creative and character specific but what works here heavily depends on your eye shape so what works for me might not necessarily work for you. Since I have hooded eyes so I go prettttty thin here and extend a bit past my eyelid. I go even thinner on my lower lash line to avoid getting raccoon eyes. I like to add a little point on the inner corner sometimes because I think it looks cool. I also feel that pinterest cosplay tutorials will explain this better than I can lol. I will also use a brown liner under my eye and black on my upper lash line sometimes to help me not look too emo unless the character calls for that (like atlus characters!) I like using NYX epic ink liner for this
8. Mascara. Idk... I just put on a bit of mascara... all the powder will take the black of your eyelashes away so put that back on there. Use your brand of choice. I use the cheapest thing I can find...
9. Lips! I will put a little bit of concealer on the very top and bottom of my lips to make them a little bit smaller for masculine characters. I mostly put a darker red on the inside of my lips and blend it out to give my lips color without making them overly feminine or giving myself the infamous “concealer lips”. I use a lip liner from NYX for this. Here is a pinterest tutorial. I like to highlight the middle of my lips as well just for fun.
10. Setting spray. Just spray all over with your setting spray of choice, I use colourpop's setting mist.
AND THEN YOU ARE DONE!!! Congratulations you are an ikemen!!
There's this attitude I see pop up periodically on this website that Bernadette Banner is a total sham who dupes people into believing that corsets were okay, speaking from her own personal and limited experience while not saying anything a real historian would stand by. A lot of the time, they kind of vaguely allude to what her points on the topic are, spreading ideas that they're completely out there to people who haven't bothered to watch.
After seeing one too many of these posts, I decided that the productive thing to do would be to look at her video specifically on corsetry myths, pull out her claims, and analyze them from a historian's perspective. I don't tend to watch costubers because a) I know more than them and so get nothing out of their content and b) I have a lot of bitterness about people who know less than me being more successful as #brands because they're comfortable on camera (which is a failing of mine, I recognize). That being said, what little I've seen of Bernadette Banner has actually been pretty good.
But tightlacing and corsetry are not synonymous: simply because a woman is wearing a corset does not mean that she is — or has to — lace down to such extremes.
This is correct, and a very important point to start with. Corsets can be worn that are the same circumference as the wearer's natural waist, and still serve the same purpose of bust support and figure-adjustment (they make the waist into a circle and so look narrower from the front or back - see experimental archaeology here).
Although, granted, indeed not all women today — nor indeed 130 years ago — could be classified under this single and perhaps idealized measurement range. But this just goes to show that this very prevalent 24" Victorian measurement is not at all extraordinary by today's standards, and is still seen naturally in 21st century bodies today.
Banner is looking at mainstream clothing size charts in comparison to historical clothing measurements, something I've done myself. She is correct that extant Victorian clothing shows dimensions that exist uncorseted today.
But it's easy to put these tightlaced measurements in print, to illustrate the dainty, tightlaced figure on fashion plates, to even manipulate photographs with a bit of prehistoric photoshop wizardry to make the waist appear smaller ...
This isn't really the focus of the video, just an off-handed mention, but it is absolutely true that a) drawings can be done however the person holding the pencil likes and do not necessarily reflect how women literally walking around in the world look (still very much the case that advertising graphics and porny drawings don't look like real women!) and b) photo editing did exist in the 19th century and we do have evidence of photos well or badly edited to make a waistline smaller.
Almost consistently, on the occasion that provenance was recorded, the smaller-waisted gowns were labelled as having belonged to a 'miss' — a young woman — or is said to have been worn specifically 'before her marriage', whereas the gowns featuring slightly larger measurements were said to have belonged to a 'Mrs' or 'the mother of' — or presumably a woman of a few more years.
I haven't done a ton of research on this myself as the garments I'm used to seeing in institutions where I've worked or visited for research have had very little provenance (at the Fenimore, a LOT of pieces just have the donor known), but I can verify that I've seen very small waists overwhelmingly on wedding dresses.
[not bothering to transcribe her explanation of why nobody had their ribs removed for corsetry because I think even the doubters are already on board with this one being total bs]
... there is a huge difference between the way Victorians drafted their corsets versus the way that modern costumey corsets are drafted today.
This is very true. Here is a basic off-the-rack corset, which looks like what you'll see in a lot of movies and plays. Here is a similar extant corset at the Boston MFA. The latter is cut with much more flare to the pieces to give more ease in the hips, which means more space for body fat to move into; there are also gores inserted into the bust, creating cups for the breasts to sit in rather that having a narrow chest circumference to push them up for maximum cleavage. Here's another from the Victoria & Albert which features bust gores as well as separate, unboned panels below the waist that allow for a kind of hinge at the waist which again allows body fat to have space to expand. Something else both of the latter corsets (as well as countless others in museums) have in common is that they tend to be shorter than modern costume corsets, once again allowing more room for the hips and, incidentally, holding the breasts at a lower bustline and therefore not constraining the chest as much.
Because costume corsets tend to be made longer and with less hip spring (that is, they're narrower in the hips compared to the waist measurement), it is more painful to try to lace them tightly to shrink the waist. As a result, people who wear them get a very bad impression of corsetry as a whole, without realizing that their experience is not historically accurate. "Embodied experience" (per Dr. Hilary Davidson) is an important tool in the study of historical fashion, but it requires a significant amount of work in the leadup to ensure that the experience you're embodying is actually relevant to the past.
The negative perceptions of corsetry that we have today I think are stemmed mainly from the Rational Dress and anti-tightlacing tirades presented in magazines, newspapers, and journals. Because, here's the thing: as with any fashion, there are always going to be opponents of a certain trend, and there are always going to be people who can't bear the feeling of tight clothing. So of course they're going to be the ones to speak out about it, and of course to try to convince others to drop the fashion as well. That doesn't necessarily mean that the opinion was ubiquitous throughout Victorian society, or that people agreed with it.
This bit I think could have been worded better, and I expect that it's part of what's incensed people. On the one hand: yes, there are people who have sensory issues and are never going to be comfortable in garments someone else finds completely so, which is a valuable point. It doesn't make those garments morally suspect. On the other hand: Rational Dress/Dress Reform was a movement with political and philosophical underpinnings, and it does the subject a disservice to refer to it as people who were just "opponents of a certain trend". That being said, the nuances of the feminist origins of the movement vs. their misogynist takes on women who dressed fashionably would be kind of a lot to deal with in this specific video.
[After realizing that she essentially grew up in a corset] Granted, the obvious flaw in my retroactive and entirely unintentional experiment is that my corset was not at all constructed in the way as a 19th century corset would have been, and in fact was built asymmetrically with the intent of treating my spine, not with creating a fashionable figure. Nevertheless, since the worst of my curves sit right at the waist area, significant waist reduction was necessary to stop the progression of the curves, which means that I was corseted down to a 24" waist. I wore this for about five years [...] It was extraordinarily comfortable.
First off, this does sound like a pretty reasonable comparison to historical corsetry to me. It would be useful to know what her uncorseted waist was at the time, but I can appreciate that not everybody knows their dimensions at all times. There's still some issues relating this directly to historical practices as embodied experience, but in comparison to the people saying she's an idiot because they wore an uncomfortable corset in a community theater production or at a reenactment (see previous point), I think she was probably getting closer to the real deal. At the same time, she's acknowledging that this is not exactly the same as the real deal, contra the claims that she actively obscures it.
She also acknowledges here that wearing corset full-time caused her to have no abdominal strength once she was out of it, and I think it's important to highlight this because so many of the takes on Banner claim that she won't say anything negative about corsetry. I don't know if they're deliberately obscuring this or if it's just representative of the fact that "Bernadette Banner says corsets are all wonderful" gets passed around by word of mouth without anyone actually watching the video.
But what I really clipped this line for was to point out that there's a disturbing ableism in the "stupid corset-heads parroting Banner" takes. People bring up her scoliosis in this derogatory way, as though it invalidates her experience ... I do not like it. People who have less experience with corsetry than her will explain that Banner's scoliosis means that her analysis of her body and her support aid cannot have any worth.
We see loads of references to this swooning and fainting in novels — in works of fiction —dating from this period, but do we actually see this prevalently in actual, non-fictional writing? Indeed, Doris Langley Moore points out that "in the diaries, letters, and other literal records of the time, there is surprisingly little of this swooning." It is entirely likely that this dramatic and conspicuous manner of reaction was simply a popular literary device used to communicate the shock value of a fictional situation. [...] In fact, in my own years of said 'restriction', enduring the same 24" waist that we see popping up so prevalently in our investigations, never once did I feel desperately short of breath, and never once did I actually faint.
This is an extremely good point, and one that I've addressed before at AskHistorians at length. (And as a moderator, I was unfortunately able to see exactly how many other people responded to the question with "they were fainting because of corsets!!" even after they were removed.) You will note several academic citations on the cultural use of passing out as a trope in fiction and in the courtroom, if that's your thing. Langley Moore's findings in primary sources also echo my own: women in the 19th century didn't record fainting as a regular occurrence. It was in large part a relic of 18th century sentimental fiction in which men AND women swooned to show how intensely they felt their emotions.
To compensate for the lack of expansion capacity, you learn to breathe with the tops of your lungs, rather than with the lower or middle part of your abdomen, taking smaller breaths more frequently as opposed to deeper breaths less frequently. [...] Valerie Steele goes into more detail on this in the chapter of her book devoted to the medical effects of corsetry, but her sources and conclusions find that there is no real harm in breathing in this different way.
Clarifying to start with that Dr. Valerie Steele is the director and chief curator of the Museum at FIT, editor of the academic journal Fashion Theory, and has a PhD in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History from Yale. There is a strong unwillingness (from some of the same people who decry anti-intellectualism on this website!) to take her conclusions seriously because if she says things that Banner agrees with, she must just be a silly costumer and not a scholar. I've cited The Corset: A Cultural History is silly slapfights here and have had it completely dismissed many times.
Banner and Steele both note that this type of breathing is common in pregnant and overweight people. It's really not a big deal. Is it a negative effect? In a sense, in the way that bisexually sitting on one foot is technically bad for me because it can make my ankle ache if I do it for too long.
The final most obvious possible effect of all this corsetry business is my eating habits. I have always been an excruciatingly slow eater, that is my own problem, but that seems to have been something that's been slightly exacerbated by my years in the brace: this is perhaps an entirely personal psychological effect, and is by no means necessarily widespread amongst corset wearers past and present, but I found it extraordinarily unbearable to feel full whilst wearing it, and so preferred to eat smaller meals more frequently or normal portions very, very slowly to avoid this.
Again, Banner is noting a negative effect of corsetry, one that most people who regularly wear historically accurate corsets (especially ones with any reduction) will also admit to. And again, it's not really a big deal. I wouldn't say I find it "extraordinarily uncomfortable" to be full; for me it's more that I feel full faster. When people say she says corsets are all butterflies and rainbows and won't admit there are any negative physical effects from wearing corsets because her brace was comfortable, they are either lying or talking about her videos without having seen them.
I won't claim that there aren't any inevitable harmful effects as with any form of extreme bodily modifcation — as with tightlacing — but we must remember that tightlacing was not commonplace, and is not synonymous with corsetry in general.
This is an important point, and one that the scholarship (Steele) fully backs up. "Normal" corseting was not an extreme form of body modification.
It must also be pointed out that there's really no definitive evidence that many of these abundantly claimed effects were solely and specifically due to tightlacing — since these problems weren't ubiquitously common and particular only to women — and haven't miraculously disappeared in our uncorseted population today. Or, in the case of consumption, or tuberculosis, have since been firmly proven to have other and completely unrelated causes.
I would disagree a little with Banner here in that some of the things that were attributed to corsetry were because they were common and more frequently occurred in women! If you're a 19th century doctor and you're trying to explain why more women have gallbladder problems, you might look at the clear fact that the overwhelming majority of women wear corsets as a potential reason. However, yes, these issues still occur today despite the lack of corsets, which is a great argument against them. And yes, we do now know that tuberculosis is caused by bacteria. Steele's The Corset: A Cultural History (2003) is really THE source on this, she's done the work to actually correlate historical and modern medical records.
...
So yeah. I think Bernadette Banner's not that bad, actually.
Feel free to suggest other videos you'd like to see me look at via my ask box! Or, I guess, posts on Tumblr I should dissect. Anything like that.
Thanks for linking that point about corsets rounding out the waist - every now and then I bring that out in the inevitable "corsets bad because everyone tightlaced because you can't get that narrow waist in this picture without tightlacing", and I think it never quite lands the way it did light up a lightbulb for myself (maybe because I get a bit bogged down in the explanation). I spent approximately fourteen years going to art lessons in my childhood and teenage years, and therefore getting a pretty solid primer on how 3D objects look in a flat representation, and I guess that's part of the reason it was a "once you see you cannot unsee" thing for me, looking at old photos after I learned about this - whenever someone is presented in half-profile, which they actually often are, it's now obvious to me how the torso around the waist isn't as flattened as it actually is naturally. And you can of course see it in the extants, too. I think I learned it from Leimomi / The Dreamstress offhandedly mentioning it in a comment somewhere (obviously from her own ample experience), so it's good to have something a bit more solid to link back to.
I don't think I've really encountered much of said criticism in particulars, but I'm also wary of people dismissing costumers' knowledge as not real because I know (of) a number of people who combine the costuming hobby with actual academic research (case in point: you). Or at least apply a more or less academic standard to their costuming research, even if they gained the academic standard in a different field - I'm more unclear on who exactly this applies to but since one such person is me, I can at least tell when someone is being conscientious with their sources and providing them for others to check out for themselves. And Bernadette Banner is definitely among the costubers who actually go to the trouble of trying to cite their sources. Or at least did - I haven't watched her much recently because there's only so much I can keep up with (and it does feel like she's become a tad too YouTuber-y for what I'm actually interested in). Sooo. It also still feels a bit like "being interested in clothes is frivolous and therefore if you are you're obviously not a serious researcher and wrong". And then I guess all the nuance you do try to insert is just casually dismissed because nuance is always beneath the notice of internet warriors, you have to pick a side.
Arguments like this do often feel like you have to pick a side without nuance, and like the corset criticisers have picked the side of "humans in the past stupid and ignorant, humans in the 21st century enlightened and know everything there is to know", and, well, if looking into history taught me anything, it's that that's a pretty ignorant view to take; and if historical costuming taught me anything, it's that some solutions from the past are actually better for at least some applications than our oh-so-advanced ones. Because from my personal experience I'm not particularly convinced modern bras are so much better than corsets. They're different, and have different drawbacks.
I may not be making the same argument you are, sorry. This got a bit ranty.
I think we're coming at the same argument, though maybe not in exactly the same ways! Because we've both been dealing with the problem for so long, haha.
Pragmatic Costumer's post is so good, and I've linked it in so many different places as an illustration. I can't use myself because I have enough natural squish (am fatter than her) that I always get compression out of my corsets and can't fasten my gowns without them.
Banner does cite her sources in this video, at least. I do wish she'd separated primary and secondary, because they're all together in alphabetical order, but they're there.
I agree wholeheartedly; I actually just got into a really interesting conversation with a historian yesterday about the designation "historian" in the first place, and how we sometimes lack the language to hold up the very important work of someone who does research but does not have the technical qualifications of a historian. No one wants to downplay their work, but no one wants to denigrate people with PhD's either. I've also had personal issues with the community because the vast majority of my social circle does exactly what costubers do, we just aren't on video about it and so don't get similar respect. But that's on me and my ego.
As far as the corset issue, I will always be a centrist. There are 100% downsides to corsetry, as Bernadette points out, things like loss of muscle mass, chafing, the very idea of body modification, etc. Women existed before corsets and have existed after them. They were often uncomfortable, and occasionally dangerously so. But they weren't created to be torture devices; they served multiple real, decent purposes as well. They provide breast and back support, and give a smooth surface to drape clothing on in an era before stretch fabrics. I've worn 18th century clothing without stays before, and you know what? Feeling all that weight digging into your waist hanging off your hips is far worse than the feeling of the stays.
When I talk to the public about it, I liken them to shoes. Do people technically need to wear shoes? No, not really, unless it's snowy. But they serve important functions, keeping our feet off the ground, warm, and supported. However, they exist in a million different forms, many of which are uncomfortable and even dangerous, because they're trendy. People wear shoes that are made poorly or fit poorly, and suffer because of it. They pinch, they wobble, stilettos get caught in cobblestones, the wreck your arches and calves, etc. And yeah, a lot of that is some patriarchal bullshit. But if we look at ourselves, do we want pop historians of the future calling us all stupid and tortured for wearing high heels?
Gilbert Baker helps hoist one of the two original rainbow flags created by the decoration committee for San Francisco Gay Freedom Day | 1978 | ph: James McNamara, lead seamster of the flags
Happy pride month specifically to folks on the asexual and aromantic spectrum who oftentimes feel isolated and left out of the conversation. You belong here as much as the rest of us and I hope that you are all loved in a way that is comforting to you.
future features to help tumblr become the new pdf:
you can insert tables into posts
you can link poll results and notes to a graph or chart
when you reblog a post, you can annotate it by highlighting words and drawing on the post (the drawings stack with each reblog) (you can only draw in your blog colors)
kianamaiart
annaxmalina
blakekathryn
izzy806
janainaart
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
