Den of Geek speaks to fashion historians about the troubling trend of historically inaccurate women’s garments.
Her brother jokes that she hasnt moved in six hours.
Charlotte scowls and responds: The gown sits atop a bespoke underpinning made of whalebone.
The problem with whalebone is that it is rather sharp.
I am in the height of fashion, so this corset is quite snug.
If I move too much, I might be sliced and stabbed to death by my undergarments.
I am angry and I cannot breathe.
Turn this carriage around or I will bounce.
I will impale myself on this ridiculous corset and bleed to death.
This monologue is great for setting up Charlottes feistiness.
But Charlotte is very misinformed about her own underwear.
European women in the 1760s called their structured undergarments stays not corsets.
Stays werent made with bones from whales but with baleen from their mouths.
She definitely could move, because 18thcentury women farmed, danced and rode horses in stays.
Charlotte might need to go back to the drawing board for her escape plan.
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This trope is familiar to period drama obsessives.
Were used to heroines sobbing while domineering parent figures insist their corsets are pulled tighter.
So much of what film and TV taught us about corsets is wrong.
Stays distribute the weight of heavy skirts along the wearers torso and help them avoid muscle pain.
Looking fashionable wasnt as simple as looking skinny.
Elizabeth Swans father wants a suitor to fancy her.
He gifts her a corset and insists, Its the latest fashion in London!
Elizabeth hisses, Women in London must have learned not to breathe.
Later, the corset is so tight that Elizabeth swoons off a cliff.
Jack Sparrow resuscitates her by slicing the garment open.
Its utter nonsense, Doda says, I have to be stopped from throwing pillows at the screen.
Elizabeth is 50 years too early for the word corset.
Her father is three centuries behind on the latest fashion in London.
Waist-cinching was notreallypart of the design of 17thand 18thcentury pairs of stays, Doda says.
Assuming all women wanted to look as skinny as possible is projecting 21stcentury beauty standards onto the past.
It seems pretty unlikely a corset would cause Elizabeth to fall into the ocean.
Maybe she just fancied a swim?
The Viscount Who Laced Me
Bridgertonopens with Lady Featherington yelling, tighter!
as an army of maids tug at the laces of her daughter Prudences corset.
Her sister Penelope watches in horror.
Is she to breathe, Mama?
Prudences corset is so tight that she later faints at the Queens feet.
This scene makes no sense, because Prudences dress hides her stomach.
Women in this era mostly woreshort corsetsthat look more like modern bralettes than Elizabeth Swans stays.
The natural roundness of the bust was of great importance to fashion.
Each was pushed up and out.
In the teaser forBridgertonseason 3, the ladies dance with silhouettes like Hollister models, not Regency portraits.
Daphne and Kates corsets are the right length, but worn incorrectly.
Stays and corsets were designed to go over a lightweight shift dress, called a chemise.
Daphne and Kate skip this layer.
Its the equivalent of going for a run with trainers and no socks not comfy and very sweaty.
No wonderBridgertonactresses asked to wear bras in Season 3.
Gone with the Waist
Netflix seriesThe Empressfollows Elisabeth of Austria in 1853.
Elisabeth looks nauseous as the strings of her corset are yanked tighter and tighter.
hey stop now, she gasps, I cant breathe.
Then its just right.
Elisabeth is so perturbed she flounces off into the garden.
This scene is a great metaphor for the suffocating Hapsburg court.
Tightlacing is when you wear such compressive corsets that eventually your waist actually becomes narrower.
The invention of metal eyelets in the 1820s meant thatcorsets could be tenser.
Tightlacing became a bit more common in the Victorian era to achieve the trendy hourglass figure.
Scarlett OHara and Elisabeth of Austria are the exception, not the rule.
Why Do Period Dramas Make Corsets Look So Bad?
Dr. Kate Strasdin is a Senior Lecturer at the Fashion and Textile Institute.
She explains, the second wave feminist movement used 19th century womanhood as the arc of progress.
This was true in so many ways, but the corset was not necessarily one of them.
These images were meant to poke fun at aristocratic women, not show what they did each day.
The most extreme and eye-catching corsets get displayed in museums.
BridgertonsSimone Ashley,The GreatsElle FanningandThe FavouritesEmma Stonehave all complained recently about wearing corsets in period dramas.
But their experiences on a TV set just arent the same as the experiences of women centuries ago.
But a bespoke corset really should be comfortable.
Kate explains, It is essentially a question of budget not comfort.
Why Care?
Yes, we know realism isnt the priority inPirates of the Caribbean.
We saw Jack Sparrow water-ski with zombie sharks.
And we get thatBridgertonis entertainment, not a documentary.
We risk reducing women to passive victims or silly fashion fanatics, and thats not fair to them.
Charlotte couldnt bleed to death by bouncing about in her underwear.
