Victorian Secrets
Copyright © 2013 by Sarah A. Chrisman
Foreword copyright © 2013 by Sue Lean
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-62636-175-1
eISBN: 978-1-62873-562-8
Printed in the United States of America
For Gabriel
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction
CHAPTER 1:Nature and Artifice
CHAPTER 2:Ribbed Rumors and Stayed Truths
CHAPTER 3:A Step Backward in Time . . . and a Knotty Problem
CHAPTER 4:Waisted Curves
CHAPTER 5:Stayed Slumber and Sizing Down
CHAPTER 6:A Museum Visit
CHAPTER 7:Twenty-Four-Seven
CHAPTER 8:Meeting Mom
CHAPTER 9:Serving at Table
CHAPTER 10:Figure Facts
CHAPTER 11:Broken Bones
CHAPTER 12:Customized Curves
CHAPTER 13:The Freedom of the Corset
CHAPTER 14:Objections
CHAPTER 15:Votes for Women
CHAPTER 16:Feminine Anatomy, and Matters of Hygiene
CHAPTER 17:“All the Pretty Girls”
CHAPTER 18:Duck the Malls
CHAPTER 19:Waisted Flight
CHAPTER 20:Straight-Laced Security
CHAPTER 21:Hatter’s Logic, and Pinned Perils
CHAPTER 22:Veiled Glances
CHAPTER 23:Crisis for Beauty
CHAPTER 24:A Year On
CHAPTER 25:A Victorian Lady’s Dressing Sequence
CHAPTER 26:Fifty Years of Fashion: A Model Performance
CHAPTER 27:Loose Laces to Tie Up the Tale
Epilogue
Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Foreword
At the State Capital Museum in Olympia in 2009, at a High Tea Reception for the publication of Shanna Stevenson’s book Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices: The Campaign for Equal Rights in Washington, I met Sarah Chrisman. Here was this lovely authentically clothed young woman I’d never seen at an historical event before. She had come all the way from Seattle—taking five modes of transportation to be able to attend. The fifth was a ride with my friend, Mary Murphy, who saw her walking up Capitol Way from the bus station downtown. She pulled over and said, “I think we are going to the same place.” Sarah in her long skirts gratefully accepted the ride.
Mary showed Sarah around to the museum guests and they all marveled at her beautiful Victorian tan linen dress. You could tell by looking that it was made of natural fibers with fine hand-stitched detailing.
As a member of the Women’s History Consortium (an advisory board to the Washington State Historical Society) with a mission to collect women’s history and to celebrate the 2010 suffrage centennial in Washington, I zeroed right in on Sarah. I hoped she would be in the Olympia’s Lakefair Festival parade as part of the “Suffragettes on Parade” entry. Naturally, I was hoping she would appear at other suffrage celebration events.
I was astonished to learn that she and her husband had an extensive collection of both women’s and men’s Victorian clothing. Happily, they were interested in sharing it with the public. Sarah and Gabriel invited me to lunch in their tiny studio apartment near the University of Washington in Seattle. I was to see an extraordinary collection of exquisite antique clothing. Especially thrilling was a black hat and dress very much like that worn by Susan B. Anthony in an old photograph.
At once, I became determined to do all I could to advance this outstanding collection into public view. Organizations were being encouraged to celebrate the suffrage centennial by having a Pink Tea. This was the most formal of Victorian color-themed teas and guests sometimes spoke among themselves about winning the vote.
The opportunity came to have a Pink Tea and historical fashion show for the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation. The Chrismans’ in-depth knowledge of Victorian clothing was paired with commentary about leading northwest suffragists, both men and women, who would have worn similar clothing. The idea was to honor key leaders such as Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Scott Duniway, and Carrie Chapman Catt in the long struggle in for the right to vote. Washington women won and lost the vote more than once before becoming the fifth state to enfranchise women in 1910, the first new star on the women’s suffrage flag in fourteen long years.
As a first offering, there were a few glitches. Once Gabriel was delayed in being able to change outfits, but Sarah carried on, valiantly entertaining the guests. It was a rather grand start and Evie Greenberg was able to take wonderful photographs, extending the outreach for their collection in a significant way. No small amount of organization, work, and travel are involved in putting on an historical fashion show—not to mention the research and presentation planning involved.
Sarah’s experience as she transformed herself into a Victorian lady is laced with candid insights and surprises about the underwear of yesteryear. It was a lucky day that we met, and I am still fascinated by the fact that Sarah has worn a corset twenty-four-seven for so many years. She and Gabriel have educated many people about this amazing undergarment, which the reader will find through Victorian Secrets is subject to many misconceptions.
It is fortuitous that the Chrismans live in Port Townsend with the state’s best Victorian architecture, wonderful heritage, and steampunk festivals. Sarah and Gabriel add a great deal of historical color to these events. The best part, without a doubt, is that this historical color is authentic.
—Sue Lean, Historian
Washington Women’s History Consortium
1
Introduction
“The desire to . . . be beautiful surrounds us on every hand with grace, elegance, and refinement. The little girl that studies her features in the mirror, while she evinces possibly a disposition to be vain, nevertheless in this act shows herself to be possessed of those instincts of grace which, rightly directed, will beautify and embellish all her surroundings through life.”
—Thomas E. Hill,
Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms, 1891
People often ask me about my clothes. Are they religious? No. Are they for a job? No. Are they a costume? Most definitely not. People are always curious when encountering something unusual, but there never seems to be sufficient time to explain the entire tale, no matter how much I enjoy sharing it. The complicated story of how I came to dress as a Victorian lady on a daily basis cannot really be told in the sort of short, electronic headlines currently popular in modern media. The true tale—including all the motivations, reactions, and everything I have learned since starting out on this path—requires a far more Victorian manner of telling: starting at its beginning and with all the details intact.
Throughout the years, I have found that people are curious to learn more about my choices. They ask me to provide insights
into simple ideas, such as Victorian garments being, in many ways, more practical than their modern counterparts. They don’t mind listening to me speak of discoveries that refute popular myths. (Have you heard the one about the broken ribs? They weren’t human bones.)
Yet even the most interested of people have buses to catch, friends to meet, work to get back to—and if they don’t, I do. Throughout the nearly four years since this historical experiment (which has become my life) began, I’ve developed a sort of short “elevator speech” that touches on some of the most common questions and gives a truncated explanation of the lifestyle I have chosen.
This, however, is the long version of that story . . .
1
Nature and Artifice
Nineteenth-century fashion plate.
“The corset has also much to do with the figure. A good corset can make an unseemly figure look quite pleasant to the eye. . . . All the different shaped corsets, adapted to various figures, are made in a variety of materials.”
—Godey’s Lady’s Book, September, 1889
I looked at the contents of the last package with something between disappointment and dubiousness. “It’s a corset,” I said, trying not to sound too angry or let down. This was my birthday present, after all. “Thanks . . . ”
My husband beamed at me. “Try it on!”
I didn’t want to try it on. I had distinctly told him not to buy me a corset. We had, in fact, had a rather lengthy discussion about it. Corsets, I had told him, were unhealthy, uncomfortable, and stifling. Women used to break their ribs to fit into them, and when the poor things died and their bodies were dissected, their dear organs weren’t even in the right places anymore.
Sometimes telling a person something and actually getting through to them can be entirely different matters, however, as evidenced by the object I was holding. Gabriel was still smiling. I looked down at the item in my hands: dark blue lace, patterned with roses, overlaid the blue-gray silk body of the corset.
“Blue roses,” I observed aloud. My favorite color, together with my favorite flower. It is a combination that never happens in nature, although artifice has arranged it upon occasion.
Gabriel nodded, smiling endearingly. “The silk color matches your eyes!”
I sighed. The gift was not totally without thought, for all that it was unwanted. He had obviously put consideration into it, even if he had not heard a word I’d said in our earlier discussion. And it is distinctly hard for me to turn down blue roses. Best get this over with, I thought.
I unwrapped the plastic in which it had been shipped and turned the corset around and around, trying to determine front from back, top from bottom. It seemed far more two-dimensional than the versions of corsets I had seen in movies. It was actually quite flat and had been folded into a neat little rectangle before I started fussing with it. I was having trouble squaring the perplexing item in my hands with the masochistic, male-enforced, body-mangling corset I’d read about in women’s studies texts. I wasn’t even quite sure how something so flat and stiff could really fit around a three-dimensional frame.
“This is an underbust model,” Gabriel explained. “It goes under your bra.” He looked embarrassed. “The overbust kind is a lot more expensive, and, well, I was afraid you wouldn’t like it.”
Well, at least he didn’t buy the most expensive version of a thing I’ll never wear, I thought. I held it up against the underwire of my bra, trying to decide which way it went. I was fairly sure the laces went in the back, but if it was meant to be laced together, the heavy metal fastenings opposite the laces seemed totally superfluous. Why did it have fastenings if it had laces—or, contrariwise, why did it have laces if it had fastenings? Wasn’t life complicated enough without an undergarment that clasped and tied? I frowned.
It had curves at both ends of the metal supports inside the silk, and I wasn’t sure whether it made more sense for the deeper curves to be at the top or at the bottom where they’d let my legs move. I fidgeted with it, holding it first one way, then the other.
Meanwhile, Gabriel unfolded the directions sheet. “It says the clasps go on the right.”
I shifted the corset, deeper curves up now. The point between the curves fit right between the cups of my bra and the corset rested against the underwire. On the bottom, the shallower lines hinted at the top curves of my thighs, but hovered so far above them that I realized walking wouldn’t be a problem.
The clasps were of a style I hadn’t dealt with before, but easy enough to comprehend—a very straightforward, slot-and-grommet arrangement, sort of like a big cousin to the hooks and eyes on my bra.
“It says,” Gabriel continued reading off the directions sheet, “that you should never fasten the very top or the very bottom grommet first, because they could get damaged—”
“I guess that makes sense . . . ” I reluctantly recalled my high school physics lessons. In an object under physical strain, the ends of the object generally tend to be under more strain than the middle.
“—and never try to undo the clasps without untying the laces first,” my husband said, finishing the reading.
And there went my first idea of how to streamline this insanity. As a young child, I used to leave my sneakers loosely tied all the time so that I could slip in and out of them like loafers. My first thought upon seeing the grommets was that they should be sufficient on their own. Apparently not.
With the grommets fastened, I groped behind my back for the laces. I craned my neck around in a fruitless attempt to see what I was doing.
“I’ll help you.” Gabriel stepped up behind me and gave me a gentle little kiss, just behind my right ear. He took the laces from my flailing hands and carefully pulled them in, fumbling with the bow a bit until I lent him a finger to hold down the crosstie while he shaped the loops. He then tugged the bow secure and gave me two sweet little pats on the hips. He peered over my shoulder at the mirror’s image of the two of us.
I stared at my reflection in the glass. The dear mirror was showing me the most flattering lie possible, and my mind struggled to fit the lovely form in the silvered glass into the image of what I truly knew myself to be. This was not me.
And yet, it was.
I had always struggled with being a bit on the heavy side—not obese, but . . . well, substantial. I was cursed with the sort of inconvenient plumpness that might have been cute on a shorter girl, but on a woman who towered ten inches past the five-foot mark, it was embarrassingly intimidating. (Any female who shares the plight will understand: it’s bad enough to be taller than most of the boys back in high school, but to be a fat girl taller than most of the boys . . . Let’s just say I’d had a lot of lonely Friday nights. By the time my senior prom rolled around, I was so determined to attend at least one dance that I’d shown up in the company of another girl and her Kermit-the-Frog puppet. At least she’d had a date, even if he was green.)
Suddenly, though, that was all gone. The irritating bulges—on which years of exercise, skimping on meals, and skipping desserts had left no effect—had vanished as though by fairy magic. My miraculously lean flanks shone smooth with the silk that covered them. The curves at my waist were not the convex rounds I had hated for years, but the elegant, inward slopes I had seen on models and had resigned myself to never possessing. They were suddenly mine.
I took a breath. Everything I’d ever been taught about corsets had dictated in no uncertain terms that I should be fainting dead away about this time, but I was completely hale. My wind was strong; the only noticeable difference was a slight catch at the base of my diaphragm muscle, which subtly changed the manner of my breathing: as I inhaled, my lungs rose up, instead of down. They drew my breasts with them, and I laughed to see my heaving bosoms in the mirror.
The laughter transformed my face, and the eyes of the creature in the mirror sparkled at me. I lifted my chin to see what it would look like and the mirror flashed poise.
In the mirror, Gabriel smiled at me. “You l
ook beautiful.”
I continued to stare, the image I saw before me still struggling to mesh with the image of myself I held firmly in my mind. I ran a hand down the smooth silk of a curve. “Wow.”
“Do you like it?” Ah, the hopeful question that always accompanies a gift.
“Well . . . ” I wasn’t quite ready to give up a lifetime of teachings yet. Everything that had ever been preached to me about this item dictated that I should be shrieking from oppression. “It’s . . . interesting.”
Worry clouded my husband’s face. “I hope you’re not mad at me.”
It was my twenty-ninth birthday, and this was his gift to me—one of many, actually. A green silk dress, frothy-edged with antique lace, lay amongst the tissue that had encased it. Next to its box was another; its folds of delicate paper serving as a nest to a black velvet bonnet, glinting with jet beads and the iridescent pouf of an ostrich plume tip. There was a black silk jacket with silver stripes in the lining and an antique velvet cape trimmed with monkey fur. I had woken up to breakfast in bed that morning and then been showered with presents. How could I possibly be angry?
“Of course not,” I said, giving him a kiss.
“I know you said you didn’t want one. . . . ” The worry persisted in his voice. “But, you like the Victorian era so much, and it’s the only real way to make the clothes fit the way they’re supposed to.”
“I know.” We collect antique clothing, and it had been a long source of frustration that nothing fit me from my favorite era. I kissed him again and he hugged me.
“So, should I help you take it off before I go to class?”
I looked back in the mirror and hesitated. The wonderland image ran a hand down a silk curve and rested it on a shapely hip. I paused. “Let’s . . . leave it on. For now, at least.”
At this point in our history, the schedules of academia exercised a large influence on the life my husband and I shared. Gabriel was in graduate school earning his master’s degree in library science, and I was studying to become a licensed massage practitioner. (I had already earned two university degrees, but there is a very old saying that “Man proposes and God disposes.” Thus it was that I had, fresh from high school, worked ceaselessly for four years to earn two bachelor’s degrees simultaneously, only to see the job market for those degrees completely collapse just as I was graduating. I received my diplomas in international studies and French in June of 2002: a date that means little to people until I point out that it was exactly nine months after September 11, 2001. It was just enough time for borders to slam shut and the world’s economy at large to hit free-fall velocity on its plummet downward. Those were dark days for the entire world, and it would be unfair to those whose lives were affected far more tragically than mine to make too much of my own disappointments. Later, studying for my massage license, I hoped that a job whose purpose was to help people relieve stress would be somewhat less subject to politics than my original ambitions had been.
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