Corset Work

© 2013-2020

Conventional Burdens...

Pivot of Motion and Centre of Endurance

The theme of this piece is confinement and it was completed during the pandemic of 2020 when social distancing and house detention was thrusted upon all of us. The project was inspired by various historical texts that alluded to a woman’s limited sphere, such as Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which declared:

     “Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming

     around its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”

At the time when Mary wrote those words, she would have not yet seen the large “caged” crinolines of the future Victorian period shaping up to confine women even further. These women were both imprisoned by their clothing, as well as the social mores of the times. During this time the domain inside the home belonged to the woman, and outside of it belonged to the man. It was said that many of the Victorian middle and upper class women were kept "like a bird in a cage," within their overstuffed drawing rooms.

In addition to this fashion creating a barrier through its physical size, the crinoline was also the cause of “accidental” deaths.  As reported in the press, wearers caught on fire, got mangled in machinery or drowned. In 1862 it was reported:

     “How dreadful it is that women will wear such inordinate skirts, and of such inflammable materials!

     Nothing – not even an accident a week – seems to influence them in this absurd fashion.

     It is, at all events, sufficiently obvious that serious calamities will have no effect in retarding the progress or

     diminishing the extend of this costume. It may, on the other hand, be perpetuated and strengthen by

     repeated martyrdoms in its cause.”

The size of the hoop skirt did not go unnoticed by social commenters at the time in the form of drawings and music, such as this 19th c. song, Hoops. No. 2. What A Ridiculous Fashion? which went,

     “How long will our ladies troop, about encircled by a coop,

     Composed of air-tub, bar, and hoop, oh, what a ridiculous fashion,

     The more you scoff, the more you jeer, the more the women persevere,

     In wearing this apparel queer, which is in cost extremely dear,

     So much material it requires, which every husband’s patience tires

     The fashion not one man admires, oh, what a ridiculous fashion…”

These words and others from the sheet music, create the printed pattern on the crinoline.

Other text used in this project includes patents created for the hoop skirt, medical treatise, and various woman’s literature from Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Arena, Abba Gould Woolson’s lectures on dress-reform, and Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine among others.

Although current conditions place restrictions on us, the words written by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps in 1873

remain an inspiration:

     “The muscular masculine physique could not endure the conventional burdens which the nervous feminine

     organization supports. The man would have yielded and sunk, where the woman has struggled and climbed.”

The discussion of fashion, its place in society and on a person’s body, is an ongoing one. As we adopt to the new dress codes during the current pandemic, I think of sentiment written in a fashion magazine that seem as applicable today, as it did when it was first published in 1865:

     “The day comes when they tell us that ‘everyone wears’ this or that… and this is an irresistible argument

     with most of us; few can struggle against the tide; and be the fashion ever so ugly or unbecoming

     we are forced to adopt it.”

View and download the bibliography, text and specs at ConventionalBurdens_TxtSpcsBibl_052020.pdf

You can watch the video in the image above or at this vimeo link