GBT Tulsa

http://www.qplussizelingerie.com/

Normally a corset supports the visible dress, and spreads the pressure from large dresses, such as the crinoline and bustle. Sometimes a corset cover is used to protect outer clothes from the corset and to smooth the lines of the corset.

Corsets were originally quilted waistcoats, worn by French women as an alternative to stiff corsets.(Steele,29)They were only quilted linen, laced in the front,and unboned. This garment was meant to be worn on informal occasions, while stays were worn for court dress. In the 1790s, stays fell out of fashion. This development coincided with the French Revolution, and the adoption of neoclassical styles of dress. Interestingly, it was the men, Dandies, who began to wear corsets.(Steele 36)The fashion persisted thorough the 1840s, though after 1850 men who wore corsets claimed they needed them for "back pain" (Steele 39).