Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 39

Class Comfort—from Corset to Brassiere

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the winter of 1913-1914. The sensual movements of the dance, performed to a
passionate Argentine rhythm, created as much controversy in the American press
(not to mention considerable concern in maternal bosoms) as it had caused in moresophisticated European cities the season before. While a Parisian comtesse had
reportedly wondered aloud, if “one [were] supposed to dance it standing up,” a
Baptist minister told a writer for the New York Times that mothers who allowed
their daughters to tango would be “throwing [them] to the crocodiles in the cause
of social advancement” (Collier, Cooper, Azzi, and Martin 76, 92). Editorializing
for the premier issue of Vanity Fair in 1914, Franklin James put his tongue firmly
in cheek to articulate the problem:
It is well known that there have been long periods when, so far as the
naked eye and polite discourse are concerned, ladies... have had no legs.
Hoops, petticoats, bustles...have so swathed them that both they and the
word for them have theoretically, faded from the social
consciousness.... IBut now, with the popularity of the tango,] the femi
nine leg has once again been uncobbled. Public guardians should realize
that the only way to guide this momentary ebullience into safe channels
is to encourage it so strongly that trotting and tangoing will soon become
a dull social habit rather than a lustral rite....There is, of course, another
remedy though I fear it’s too late: and that is to bribe [fashion designers]
hurriedly to introduce some thickly quilted, steel-ribbed garment that will
banish the female limb to its former visual and linguistic non-existence
(19).
Fashion designers responded to high society’s demand for increasing freedom
of movement. Ball gowns lost their trains, and dancing slippers grew high heels
and ankle ribbons. Most important, in 1914 corset designers, perhaps in response
to popular demand, introduced an abbreviated version of their foundation gar
ment. But middle- and upper-class women found it necessary to be more radical in
their dress if they hoped to “uncobble” their legs sufficiently to dance the tango.
High school girls reportedly confided to psychologist G. Stanley Hall that they
“parked their corsets” when they went to dances so they would not “be dubbed
‘ironsides,’ or left a wallflower” (Hall, 773). Even a few married women used the
tango as an excuse to temporarily break free from their restrictions. George Rector’s,
a Broadway restaurant, offered ladies the opportunity to rent a male partner who
could tango between cups of tea. Young matrons who patronized afternoon “tea
dansants,” as they were called, scandalized the press by checking their corsets at
the door “so they could dance not only cheek to cheek, but everything to every
thing.” (Samuels 251).