Corsets and Crinolines

The first of Miss Waugh's seminal books on historic costume, it set a new standard of accuracy and lively interest

Showing that the silhouette of women's dress has been in a state of continuous change, allied to economic and architectural evolution as well as changing ideas of sexual attractiveness, she itemizes three cycles in the last 400 years in which women's silhouette was blown up to the utmost limit, by artificial means, and then collapsed again to a long straight line

At these points and extremes were invariably considered absurdities and the corsets and hoops were discarded by their users, so that in actuality very few specimens from the earlier periods at least have come down to us