ornamentedbeing:“Ambling around the V&A’s new exhibition, At Home in Renaissance Italy (Actually
ornamentedbeing:“Ambling around the V&A’s new exhibition, At Home in Renaissance Italy (Actually this exhibition was from 2006 but the article was such a good read!) I was brought to a standstill this week by what I assumed must be an instrument of torture. A constrictive steel cage, hinged at the front and fastened with a hook, the contraption was clearly meant to fit bone-tight around a woman’s torso, sharpening to a terrifying point at the pudenda. A casual glance suggested that it had been worn as a criminal punishment (or, at the very least, for some sado-masochistic sex game).I was wrong though. The contraption - a 16th-century steel corset - was actually highly fashionable in its day, a serious status symbol for Europe’s wealthiest women. Flora Dennis, Renaissance expert and co-curator of the exhibition, says, “Catherine de’ Medici brought corsets like this in her trousseau when she came to France to marry Henry II in 1533, and we know that Eleanora di Toledo, who married Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1539, ordered two or three of them … Her wardrobe was cutting edge and we think her steel corsets were made by Cosimo’s armourer.”The corsets were highly prized then, despite the fact that they severely constricted breathing and were widely thought to cause miscarriages (so much so that the Republic of Venice passed legislation in 1547 to stop Venetian women from wearing them).”Images: Front view, the corset this article is talking about, the back view -- source link
#iron corset#metal corset#corset#fashion