A Supporting Role In The Corset Industry

FAIRFIELD — Before the Hollywood Warner Bros., there were the Bridgeport Warner Brothers, who ran the world’s largest corset factory. How they, and other Connecticut manufacturers, changed women’s style and lifestyles is the subject of the exhibition “Shaping Fashion: Connecticut’s ‘Supporting’ Role,” on view through April 8 at Fairfield Historical Society.

 “Shaping Fashion” looks at both the social and aesthetic aspects of such devices as stays, hoops, bustles, corsets and corselettes. As women’s fashions changed, so did methods of making the shaping devices. Originally constructed by hand, corsets were mass-produced by the 1870s using various new machines and materials. Even so, some of the finest quality corsets retained hand-sewn finishing details.

The earliest items in the exhibition are stays, or rigid 18th Century constructions of linen and baleen (whalebone), the latter a product of Connecticut’s whaling industry. Later came soft-bodied corsets, molded hourglass corsets, and long-waisted corselettes.

In the 19th Century, Yankee ingenuity responded swiftly to the changing shape of skirts. Connecticut residents held many of the patents for skirt hoops and bustles, as well as for corsets and their components.

In the 1850s, watchspring steel was used to make hoops, eliminating the need for layers of petticoats. In the 1870s and 1880s, bustles gracefully supported skirts made of the heavy satins and velvets then in vogue.

One of the most intriguing patent holders in Victorian Connecticut was Lavinia H. Foy of New Haven. Madame Foy, as she was known, developed a prosperous business with her husband, James Foy, and son, George Harmon. Advertisements for their products most often featured the Madame Foy skirt-supporting corsets, designed to relieve women from the burdensome weight of long skirts. A Madame Foy corset from the 1880s has been loaned to the historical society for the exhibition.

Using patent drawings, business histories, advertisements and photographs, “Shaping Fashion” also depicts Connecticut as a design and manufacturing center, in some ways the nation’s corset capital. A center for the manufacture of sewing machines by the 1870s, Bridgeport was an ideal location for the industry thanks to a ready supply of labor and good connections to railroads and ports.

 Warner Brothers, now known as Warnaco, started in 1874 in upstate New York and moved to Bridgeport in 1876. The 1897 wedding outfit — including the “Redfern” satin corset designed in Paris — worn by I. DeVer Warner’s second wife, Eva Follett, is a highlight of the Fairfield exhibition. Other Bridgeport manufacturers included Bridgeport Skirt Company, which made steel hoops, and House Corset Machinery Company, which produced corset-making equipment.

New Haven was also home to several corset manufacturers including Strouse, Adler & Co., now remembered as the makers of the modern “Smoothie” foundation garment. Max Adler and Isaac Strouse developed the company in the 1870s; some of Mr Adler’s early patent drawings are included in the exhibition. Manufacturers in nearby Derby and Ansonia produced hoops, corsets and their components.

The exhibition also uses mannequins in period clothing to show the fashionable silhouettes supported by corsets, hoops and bustles. Even dolls required proper shaping, as a tiny pink satin corset, circa 1900, in the historical society’s collection demonstrates.

In addition to pieces from Fairfield Historical Society, “Shaping Fashion” lenders include Saundra Altman of Past Patterns, New Haven Colony Historical Society, Simsbury Historical Society, and Patri and Barbara Pugliese.

Fairfield Historical Society is at 636 Old Post Road, opposite Town Hall Green. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 4:30 pm, and Sunday from 1 to 4:30 pm. Call 203/259-1598 for more information.