All posts tagged: Rilla Corset

The Ideal WWI era figure, Part III: the changing ideal from 1913-1921

Continuing on in my series looking at the ‘ideal’ figure from 1913-1921, this week lets look at how figure ideals changed from 1913 to 1921. See Part I, for a range of ideal figures as featured in a Gossard’s corset ad, here; and Part II, for a breakdown of the elements of the ‘ideal’ 1913-1921 figure, here. Starting in 1913, the ultra-fashionable 1913 figure was very much a carry-on of the extremely slim-hipped 1910 look: The bust is the full, low, drooping Edwardian mono-bosom that has been in fashion since ca. 1900. Depictions of un-corseted women in the same catalogue show figures that are somewhat less stylised, but have the same general slim hipped, low busted look, though with separate breasts, rather than a monobosom: The biggest change in the fashionable silhouette of the 1910s happened between 1913 and 1914. At the end of 1913 we see the very beginnings of the change: hips were widening, and the silhouette was changing from ‘a snake with a boob’ (as a friend of mine calls it), to …

Pictoral Review, April 1916, thedreamstress.com

The Ideal WWI era figure: Part II

Published by The Dreamstress

I started my series on the fashionable ideal of the figure in the WWI era (specifically 1913 to 1921, the years covered by the Scroop Rilla Corset) with a look at a Gossards Corset ad which showed a whole variety of ‘ideal’ figures: While these figures look diverse, they all have some traits in common, so let’s look at what they are. The fashionable figures shown in magazines and advertising ca. 1916, whether they are tall or short, large or small, all tend to feature the following: Low, moderately full busts (larger at the start of WWI, reducing as the war progresses) Small but not tiny or exaggerated waists Full, sloping bottoms, with the fullness quite low (as opposed to the modern fashion, which tends to favour high, pert bottoms). I call the WWI figure a ‘slight hourglass’ – with a gentle transition from bust to waist to hips, rather than the extreme curves of the early Edwardian era. Here is the low, full bust: Notice how much lower the bust sits compared to where …

Gossard Corsets ad, The Designer Oct 1916, thedreamstress.com

The Ideal WWI era figure: Part I

Published by The Dreamstress

As a celebration (slightly belatedly) of the release of the Scroop Rilla Corset, over the next few weeks I’ll be doing a series post about the ‘ideal’ figure from 1913 to 1921 – the period covered by the Rilla corset. I’ll be covering how the figure ideal changed from 1914 to 1921, how corsets and other undergarments were used to achieve the ideal figure and ‘correct’ the less than ideal figure, and how to wear a 1910s corset if you are ‘large above the waist’, and how to fit the Rilla to your figure. Of course, in any era, beauty is in the eye of the beholder: what the ideal figure is depends on who is describing it, so there are lots of variations. Part of the reason I really love the 1914-1921 period is that it covers a vast range of fashionable silhouettes within that 7 year range, even within a single year, and with so many different waistlines, necklines, skirt silhouettes and overall ‘looks’, there is a mid-teens style for every body. To …