- I slept in this thing. I wore this in 95 degree heat. I wore it all the time. - Ah, the corset. The bane of every pre-20th
century woman's existence. A symbol of repression,
oppression, suppression, of patriarchy and shifted organs. - I can't even take
myself jokingly seriously with all this nonsense. Hi. As some of you probably already know, I wore one of these
things for the better part of my remembered youthful years
to treat a case of scoliosis and surprisingly, I haven't died. I haven't so much as even fainted ever. Considering how many of these "I wore corset for a day" videos I'm seeing popping up out there, I decided I had to partake, only, I thought I'd add my scoliotic
historian's 2 cents to this, by taking the opportunity to explore and compare corset life. In the medical brace I am accustomed to, versus life in an actual
Victorian reproduction corset. How are they similar? How are they different? Can you put your shoes on
after putting on your corset? All these important
questions and more coming up. (music from the ball
scene of a period movie) The first task of the day is,
of course, getting dressed. So one thing I actually
figured out independently, which turns out is a
historically accurate practice, is how important it is
to be wearing a layer underneath this thing. I'm pretty sure this is common sense, but I feel like it's something
that you just come to naturally when you realize "wow, having a tight garment against
your skin is not ideal". So automatically I adopted
the practice of wearing a chemise or basically like a
camisole or an under t-shirt or just something that
went underneath this brace. This not only prevented chafing, but it helped keep my skin cooler. I mean this is plastic so this
is not Victorian obviously, not what they would have to deal with. I will say I did wear this
like all day, all the time, all day, every day, 23 and
a half hours of the day when I wasn't changing my
clothes or taking a shower. So I slept in this thing. I wore this in 95 degree heat. I wore it all the time and I
never even thought about it because it just like,
it wasn't even there. It was just part of the way that I move and part of the way that I live and adapt. One thing that's really
great about all corsetry, including this, is that you
can wear your waistbands really tight against your abdomen. You can get a really nicely fit waistband without worrying about it cutting in. I know personally, I mean
I know this sounds really contradictory but I can't stand having constrictive waistbands. It's not like you have one waistband just cutting into your waist which
is not very comfortable. (music from the fancy dinner
scene of a period movie) So I should disclaim, I'm not supposed to be wearing this thing. If you happen to be my orthopedic
surgeon once upon a time, please do not watch this video. (continued dinner scene music) All right. It is time to get to work. I'm working on another
project that's computer-based. I will get to some more slightly more upright activities this afternoon. It is also potentially interesting to see what happens when you have to sit for long periods of time in a corset. The answer is, not much. I will say in regards to posture, because this is a question
that comes up a lot with corsetry, at least with this thing, this thing is hard plastic. So yes, my posture is very much improved. I also want to say that this
is no effort whatsoever. It's not a conscious effort that I'm sitting up straight now, it's just, I mean this is also possibly a little bit of the
detriment of this in that, because I've got this coming
all the way up to here, all the way up to the
crook of my arm basically. I mean I just kind of rest on it, and I'm like at this point I'm completely slouched and relaxed. I'm just totally and entirely held up by the support of the
hard plastic which is why they tell you not to wear these things for the rest of your life, because this will deteriorate
your muscles and it did. Which is part of the reason
why I have residual issues now. So needless to say, I am
actually quite comfortable. (plucky playful music) Hello it's lunchtime, I'm
making grilled cheese. So inevitably something
that everybody asks in regards to corsetry, is
what do you do about food? How do you eat whilst
you wear something that's constrictive around you? Yes, you are prevented from expanding physically to some degree. Especially I mean with
what I'm wearing here, this is hard plastic, his does not have any give to it. I do want to say everyone is
different on this subject. Everyone who wears a corset is comfortable with different levels of strain, I guess. So there are some people
who can wear a corset, who can eat just normally
as they would every day, even uncorsetted, and they're fine. I am not that kind of person. I know Abby Cox said on
her channel I believe, when she was talking about
dressing 18th century how they all go out to a restaurant
in their 18th century wear and at the end of the
meal, all the women would lean in a way to get the pressure
off of their abdomen so that they could have
a little bit more of more extending room, which is clever. It's not something that
I ever figured out. Personally, I do not like
the feeling of feeling full whilst wearing something around my middle. I eat very very small portions, but frequently throughout the day. So generally, and this is
something that I do even now that I am no longer wearing a corset. I focus on consuming
dense, high calorie foods that I don't have to
consume large quantities of that they can sustain me until like, when I eat again in
like two or three hours. So typically it depends on what time I get up in the morning. But if I'm up from six or
seven I'll have breakfast then, and then I'll have second
breakfast around 10 or 11, and then I'll have lunch at like midday. And then I will have like afternoon tea, like another thing in the
middle of the afternoon. Then I will have dinner. And depending on what time I have dinner, if I have dinner late
then I won't eat anything late at night. But if I eat dinner more
like six or seven o'clock, then I will have another
snack before I go to sleep. So it's about quarter to
two o'clock right now. I have to go out and
post a letter real quick. I also feel like I want to
take you on adventures outside. We'll go on a little adventure real quick. And then I have to get
back here to do some sewing that I have to start doing
before I start losing the light because it is fast approaching winter. And that's the thing
that tends to happen so. Friends, I have to confess the
one and only point of pain, that I am feeling right now, is the underwire of my modern bra. (face thy foe adventure music) (plucky cute music) So when I put out a little
poll on Instagram to ask, what are the questions that
you have about corset life? How do you do that in life? Almost every single question has something to do with movement. How do you bend over? How do you sleep? How do you do this? How do you put on your shoes? Virtually everything is still possible. You do definitely lose
a range of movement. Obviously I can't bend the lower half of my spine. Like I can't curve my back like that. However, we forget that the
human body is capable of moving in many different directions. So if you need to bend over, well you have the option
of bending at the waist. You have the option of
bending at the shoulders. You have the option of
bending with your knees. So there are many different ways to still perform the same activities. You just do them in a
slightly different way. And it's all something that
happens very naturally, very instinctually, and very intuitively. If you are used to doing
all of your bending, just in this lower part of your spine, you will notice a difference in the way that you are moving. It is not constrictive though
because you're not being prevented from making these movements. You can still do them. You just have to use another
part of your body to do that. So I had absolutely no
issue putting on my shoes. I had absolutely no issue
bending over to pick things up or sitting in all sorts of
weird unnatural positions, as some of us are so want to do. And I was still able to do
all of that, perfectly fine. Comfort update, I guess? I mean it's gotten to
the point where it like, I'm starting to forget that it's here. There are a couple of bother spots, one, this underwire spot
is still driving me insane. The other thing that I'm
starting to notice is this bit here where it cuts in, starting to cut into
one of the back muscles that I have developed since
I stopped wearing this thing. This is an issue that's
specific to this brace and this is why I'm not
supposed to be wearing it still but just thought I'd point that out. So usually round this
point of the afternoon, it's about four o'clock, I will stop and do a bit of exercise. Typically, I will do the physio exercises that I am meant to be doing. However, unfortunately,
these are movements that I specifically cannot
do whilst I am in this thing because they are designed to move the bits that like can't move whilst I'm in this thing. So I can't exactly do that. So fortunately I do live in an environment with lots of stairs. So let's go see how we handle stairs. (playful music) So, I am winded. I am no more winded
than I normally would be after walking up four flights of stairs. Just like the body adapting
to different ways of movement you also adapt to different
ways of breathing. I in no way feel like
I'm going to pass out. I'm just, you know, walked up some stairs, but I'm fine. For those of you who wanted to know, yes, Suasorio is in fact using his pillow. I did just wake him up
from a nap though so. (plucky music) So in my evening hours, I spend these importing all of my
footage into my computer that I shot during the day,
as well as going through it, labeling it, doing scripting, all that sort of processing
stuff just because, I mean today I was actually working on two videos simultaneously. Well, I mean, three. So that's a lot of little individual bits and files and things
that need to be sorted. Otherwise I'm just going
to end up with a massive mess of footage, which zero out of 10, do not like to deal with that. As one Morgan Donner would
say, "Still not dead." (mysterious music) It is day two of the experiment and having been sufficiently reminded of the day to day life in the brace, it is now time to find out how life in a Victorian corset compares. The corset I'm wearing today
is a reconstruction of an 1890s corset based on a pattern
from the Symington collection. This was an actual pattern used by the Symington corset company,
which operated out of Market Harborough, England
throughout the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th. The mass manufacture nature
of the Symington company means that the corsets that they produced would have been inexpensive
and thus affordable to a wider range of women in
the latter Victorian period. In fact, the Symington
company is perhaps best known for its 'Pretty Housemaid' corset, which was marketed specifically to women working in domestic service as being a particularly
durable, supportive, and yet lightweight undergarment. While the original Symington corset would have been stiffened
with baleen or whalebone amongst a range of other
possible materials, I've stiffened to this
reproduction with synthetic baleen a particular quality of plastic
bone that is made to mimic the exact weight and
flexibility of real baleen. There's an entire two part video series on the making process for this, if you wish to learn
a bit more about that. Compared to yesterday, I am comfortable! Not that yesterday was uncomfortable, because obviously I did
wear that for many years. I am used to it, it is made for me. This is fantastic. This is like I mean, to be quite honest, this feels like sportswear in comparison to what I was wearing yesterday. I do feel a little bit lumpy up here. I should be wearing
some ruffles underneath, as well as a corset cover just to smooth the edge of the corset here going up. So this harsh line, I
do not possess currently the proper undergarments to solve that but this would not be historically
desirable I should say. This one actually is a
little bit more difficult on the breathing just because the brace that I was wearing
yesterday is underbust. So it stopped here. It did come up a bit
further up in the back. But this provides bust support. That is the point of the corset. So this comes up obviously
all the way round here, which means it constricts a bit more around the upper part of my ribs. I can breathe fairly deeply,
but I have to sort of-- the only way I can describe
it is like conical breathing. Like you breathe the
most up top and you just sort of funnel it down into
the lower part of your lungs. So it's not that I can't breathe deeply. I definitely can. It's just a different process
than what I'm used to. (violin music) I should point out by the way
that I am not tight laced. There is a difference
between wearing a corset as a supportive undergarment,
and tight lacing, for the benefit of fashion. So I am not tight laced. I'm not cinching myself down
to a 21 inch, 18 inch waist. I have laced this just
so that it is snug enough so that it doesn't move around on me because that will be uncomfortable. But it's not so tight as to
constrict me unnecessarily. I don't want to say these
corsets are restrictive, I should say, in regards to movement because this whalebone
is really quite flexible, especially when it starts to heat up against the heat of your body. It starts to soften up a bit. Historically whalebone, real whalebone I mean it's keratin. It's like fingernail and hair material so. It does soften up with heat and moisture, which sitting against your
skin it will do that so. Not only will it become
softer whilst you wear it, but it will also start to mold
to the shape of your body. So you will end up with
a custom fitted corset the more that you wear a whalebone corset. This is really quite flexible. I can kind of bend and do all
the like weird torso movements that I definitely could not do yesterday. I will say sewing in a
corset is nice back support. Not that sewing is like
physically strenuous work, but you do, I'm sure if you sew you know, you find yourself often leaning quite precariously over your work, which after a couple of hours, when you don't realize you're
doing it, Really Hurts. The hard plastic brace yesterday, definitely kept me very straight up, but even on the flexible whalebone corset, this is actually kind of the
best of both worlds because you do get the flexibility
of the whalebone, so I can still move, I do still have that freedom of movement. However, there is a big steel
busk down the front of it, as you probably saw when
I was putting this on so. That is less flexible. It still does have some give to it. So there is a very strong reminder every time I do go to bend over like that, wait, maybe we should not. I will say though,
there was a brief period where I was still wearing my brace, whilst I was working on
Broadway and theater, and I was made to carry around, obviously lots of heavy
fabric, lots of heavy costumes all over the city and it was
never something that fazed me. I know I look small and weak, but I would always manage these quite heavy loads, perfectly fine. It wasn't so much like
my own physical strength so much as that I had the
ability to balance that strength over this extra reinforcement
support over my core which was really useful. So how's that for corsetry
turning women into small, delicate, weak, crippled things. In a weird way they
actually make you stronger, not in a physical sense,
not in the sense that these are actually my own muscles, but the corset itself does provide you an extra layer of strength which is a bit counter intuitive to our
modern narrative of corsetry. I always like to devote at
least an hour or two each week to taking an online course. So I'm getting off my feet
for a bit this afternoon to do just that. This video is conveniently
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around $10 per month. So I think it is time to now
attempt a bit of exercise. Now, in theory I think I actually do have a bit more core movement here. So I could potentially do
some of the physio exercises that I'm supposed to be doing. However, I think it
would be a bit more fun to attempt some Victorian exercises. I have actually, my good
friend Constance McKenzie has sent me a link to a 1910,
every woman's encyclopedia. In which is contained some instructions for some basic exercises. So I thought we would
give this a shot today. It's really interesting
because this article actually has pictures in it
showing actual photographs of a Victorian woman
doing these exercises. And you can see she has
got quite a bit of core bending and movement going on. She's not as rigid as I definitely felt and definitely was in the brace. This of course is obviously
due to the flexibility of whalebone, even if she's
got steels in her corset that still does have some give to it. So let's see what sort of exercises the Victorians were getting up to. (silent film piano music) So this first one is instructing me to stand with heels together, arms horizontal with the shoulders and bend alternatively to the
left and to the right sides. (continued silent film music) With hands on hips and heels together, bend as far back as possible at the waist, recover original position and
bend forward at the waist. Seems simple enough. Figure three: with arms raised above the
head and heels together, bend alternately as far as possible to the right and left side. Hands above the head and
bend the body at the waist until the toes can be touched. Seems pretty straight forward enough. Hold a stick in both
hands, stretch to the right swinging downwards and upwards to the left on the balls of the toes. I'm not going to lie,
that was not unaffected. I can see why it's having you do all these vertical stretches. Because when you stretch
vertically, you lengthen out, which means that your core
muscles are more engaged in doing the actions if
that makes any sense. So for example, when I'm
lengthening myself like this and I'm giving myself a bit
more room in the corset, and then I go and lean, all of a sudden these back
muscles have to do some work. So I definitely do feel it. I feel it in my lower back muscles. I feel it in my shoulder
blades when I was having to do some of those more like upper stretches. It's also really interesting
to do these exercises not in a rigid garment
that prevents movement, but in one that does
allow for some flexibility because as I'm pushing against the corset it does have give, but it has resistance. So in a weird way, I almost feel like my core muscles are having to work harder which is a good thing because obviously just having them be supported
for their entire life is not a good thing. So I actually may or may not be adopting some of these in my everyday routine. We shall see. Hello friends. Editing Bernadette coming here to you to report that I'm real hecking sore after doing that workout routine thing. A, one, because I am a weakling. I'm feeling it like here, like in my back round my waist area, which is
not a muscle I even realized I had, let alone used. So you go Victorian ladies. They're using muscles that
I don't even use apparently in my own everyday uncorsetted life. (cute piano music) Okay well after sufficiently
spending a day in this thing, I have to say, I do not hate it. In fact I have actually
grown quite comfy in it and I could 10 out of 10,
definitely see wearing one of these things in everyday life. So what can we conclude? I actually have to say, the brace is more severe,
more rigid, less flexible, and more painful than
the Victorian corset. Which is surprising because I mean in theory, the brace
is something that I'm used to. It's something that I've worn. It's something that I
tolerated very easily that I wore basically
every hour of the day. Whereas the Victorian
corset that gets so much modern day flack for being
this horrendously repressive, uncomfortable, restrictive garment, was actually far more freeing, than what I actually wore every
day of my life for a period. That was a bit of a revelation actually. I do also have to say that
because the Victorian corset was so flexible, I was not supported. I wasn't held up by the Victorian corset in the way that I was
held up by the brace. In the brace, as you saw, I was able to sort of
basically just sort of slouch and lean into it. That's of course what has caused such intense deterioration
of all my core strength. Whereas I still had a
lot of core flexibility with the Victorian corset and I could not just sort of like lean back
on it and be supported. I did have to keep myself upright. So even I will admit that I
was under the impression that "Oh, wow, Victorian women must have had very weak core muscles because
I have very weak core muscles after growing up in a corset. I think I've busted that
myth a bit for myself, in that the Victorian
corset was not nearly so restrictive as the brace. And also if she's not sleeping in it, if she is taking it off during
the day which I was not, on top of the fact that women
were obviously encouraged to exercise, especially to exercise in a manner that engaged
their core muscles. In terms of breathing, as I said, I do feel like it
was a bit easier to breathe in the brace just because it's
sort of cut off right here ish. The Victorian corset came
up a bit higher therefore, there was more of me compressed. It wasn't at all, in
any case, detrimental. It wasn't impeding. It was just readapting to the method of breathing
that I became adapted to once upon a time. Once you get used to it,
I honestly, genuinely forgot that the corset was there. I will say with the
brace I was aware of it pretty much every hour of the day. I really wish I could
recall the first week of wearing this thing and
what adjustments I was making. I don't recall ever feeling any sort of antipathy towards it. I was never reluctant or
resistant to wearing it. But I do imagine the first week or two would have been a bit of an adjustment. So just getting back into it for one day, I was very conscious of the
fact that I was wearing this brace again. I'm like mentally putting myself back into somewhere I thought I have left. With the Victorian corset however, I will say, I genuinely forgot about it by the end of the day. There were moments where I was like, Oh yeah, I'm doing this thing. I guess I need to pick
up the camera and vlog because it's just not there. It was comfortable. It was really comfortable. I mean, I've said this in the past before, it's kind of like just having like a hug. Just a permanent hug. Honestly, they're really
not that bad, friends. Eating was definitely easier
in the Victorian corset. Again, the Victorian corset has so much more flexibility to it. And also the brace sort of cuts in severely at very odd places. And so, yeah okay. It
doesn't exactly make things the most easy but with
the not tight laced, very functionally laced,
very naturally done corset, it was fine. I was wearing an 1890s corset. By this time in history, women had been wearing
corsets and stays and bodies and kirtles for literally
hundreds of years. The technology for these
things was extremely developed and extremely advanced. So whereas at one point
in the 17th century, the entire pair of stays
was just solidly boned with tiny, tiny little slivers of baleen, and were very rigid. They were stiffing with paper and paste and all this sort of
stiffening additional material. By the time you reach the
late Victorian period, which is the kind of corset I was wearing for this experiment, people had out that you don't need to just encase yourself in a wall of bones, you can actually achieve
a really supportive shape, and a really comfortable shape, in the cutting of the fabric itself rather than in the stiffening of the material. And this is something that
we seem to have forgotten in modern corsetry construction nowadays. In that we think oh,
we'll just put steel bones and everything and we will have a beautifully hourglass shape. It doesn't work like that. If you saw my corset making video, the shape of the fabric pieces themselves, the curves and the way that
they fit together, alone, without the boning, already
have such incredible shape. The boning just sort of keeps it vertical. So that when you put it on
it doesn't smoosh like that. This was not meant to
be a super fashionable Camille Clifford "let's see how tiny I can get my 18 inch waist" or whatever. That was not the point. I imagine yes, there would
be some detrimental effects from wearing corsetry in that effect. Yes, your organs move. Yes, things shift around. No, it's not harmful to your health. Pregnancy, obesity, et cetera. Things shift around just
as when you wear a corset, but they shift back, when
you take the corset off. Everything goes right back to normal, according to the x-rays
that these people have done. The only instance in which organs do shift is if you are severely tight
lacing from a very young age. I mean, in a weird way
in scoliosis treatment, that is deliberate. The whole point of scoliosis treatment is to catch the strangeness of body growth whilst you are young so that you can deliberately try and change
the composition of things by the time you are finished growing. (momentary existential crisis music) Anyway, thank you for
joining me on this quest. I hope this was informative
and I shall see you anon with some more dress history
hype and general nerdery okay. Bye. (playful music)
