I wonder if any of these are touched up, or if she really was that shape?
I love how these four are from the same photoshoot. The first one might also be from that photoshoot.
The workmanship on the gowns is amazing. Just getting the dress to hug those curves that tightly is an impressive feat!
Looking at all of these, is anyone else thinking that Christina Hendricks needs to do a Camille Clifford themed photoshoot? Vogue better credit me if they use that idea!
Do you think she was one of those Victorians that had their lower ribs removed? It looks so much like a photo of that I saw many years ago.
I’ve always heard that the lower rib removal procedure was an urban myth started by a satiric article in a magazine. Have you seen proof?
Everything I have read say that the lower rib removal is a urban myth. For onething, surgery in those time was a rather dangerous business still and not something you did just to enhance beauty.
And then there is no need for surgery. The lower ribs are called floating ribs and not as fixed in their positions as the other ones, so they adapt a bit when you wear a corset. Over time you can get them to adapt a lot. Ladies back then wore corsets since a young age and had trained their figure. Look at modern tightlacers , like Cathie Jung:
http://img2.allvoices.com/thumbs/event/900/570/31128782-cathie-jung.jpg
I have seen x-rays of her body and she has all her ribs left and I think she has a more extreme figure than Camille here.
When it comes to Camille there is a bit of an optical illusion as well. She is a rather junoesque lady which means that she probably had some fat around her waist naturally. Fat squishes well and makes it easy to lace so the ratio between bust, wasit, hips gets very dramatic. I am built along the same lines as Camille, with a large bust and broad hips, but with a comparatively narrow waist. And I have a very small ribcage naturally. I don’t ear corsets on a regular basis, but despite that I can lace down my waist with 20 centimetres without any discomfort at all, whereas a slimmer lady probably couldn’t. The effect gets pretty dramatic visually and the last time I got the comment “Do you even have any ribs? So, without even tightlacing you can get the same effect as above , if you have the right bodyshape. 🙂
Thanks Isis! It’s like hearing myself speak – I always say that the curvier you are the better you look in corsets. With me the stuff that has to move is all bone, and doesn’t move easily!
Perhaps I should try to make one of Camille’s gowns then. 😉
Thanks for the info. I read that in a book of historic costumes I got from the library as a kid, way back in the 80s, and I’ve taken it on faith that it was true ever sense. It does make sense that the ‘floating’ ribs wouldn’t need to be removed to be trained narrower.
I have to agree with someone down thread, however, that I find it more creepy than beautiful. I think of all those organs crammed together so tightly when nature wanted them to have some room to move.
I think she (all) real.
I read on Shorpy (I think it was Shorpy) that this gown was padded, sculpted even, through the bust and bum, and that the upper portion was quite ridgid.. It looks ridgid! That waist, though, geez…can’t fake that…
Well…actually…when you develop the photo you can shave a bit off each side. Original photoshop. It is the bust and bum that look extreme though. If you take them down to normal size, the waist doesn’t look so ridiculously small.
I think I used her as some inspiration the other week without checking her name. Love the Hendricks photoshoot idea, though I couldn’t see it happening.
Out of interest, why not?
What would they be selling? Why mix someone already associated with a past era into another past era? It’d be a little complicated for the average Vogue reader and they probably wouldn’t get it.
that wasp waist is creeping me out, and I agree with the comment above (lauren) that she is padded or something.
I think the pics are gorgeous. I’ve always wished I was curvy. Do you know what her measurements were?
i reckon ther’s a bit of fakery, the outlines are very cut out looking around her waist. Still amazing though. But not that attractive I feel – too extreme and therefore a bit icky. Such issues are the only areas where I feel that less is more…
Yeah, I find her fascinating but scary/creepy at the same time.
I think there may be a bit of forced perspective going on in some of these – especially the fifth and the last one – so her shoulders and bust are closer to the camera than her hips. Compare their widths in the last shot.
Thanks for the photography viewpoint Sarah!
I have seen her in just corset and she looks quite similar. I won’t say the photographs haven’t been worked on, why not, they were probably made to sell, but I think she did have a rather exaggerated figure to begin with. 🙂 The gowns are spectacular!
A Google search for Camille Clifford yields this:
http://www.staylace.com/gallery/gallery05/camilleclifford/index.html
Almost at the bottom there’s a picture of her dressed up in a sort of “18th Century” costume! I find that really funny, mixing two historical periods together!
Definite jiggery pokery going on – in what is clearly the same photo session the waistline appears different. And yup, there’s padding afoot, or ahip and abust. But I think she undeniably had a figure that went in and out to the max of nature to begin with. After that, corsetry, padding and photojiggery enhanced it!
Not an aesthetic I find pleasing. Agree that Ms Hendricks would make a fascinating Gibson Girl though!
Is it weird that I was too busy looking at her long long neck?
Okay so I just died from the fabulous! She’s got those rockin curves (even if its partially due to what’s keeping her cinched in) The gowns are just soooo beautiful!! I want to make them!! Big trains and skirts YAY!!
One of my childhood/youth art teachers told us (when we were learning to draw figures) that the waist should not be narrower than the head. So Camille, at least from an artist’s point of view, is fine