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Warner Bros. corset / Silk, satin, coraline, c.1889, USA | Photo by Eileen Costa © MFIT

“The last remains of feminine modesty sunk out of sight, drowned by the prevalent mania for elaborate underclothing,”¹ wrote the journalist Octave Uzanne in his book Fashions in Paris (1898). Surely the acceptance of colorful corsets helped to fuel Uzanne’s statement, as such foundation undergarments had formerly been associated with actresses and courtesans.

In order to create the exaggeratedly feminine, curvaceous silhouette that dominated the second half of the nineteenth century, corsets were rigidly shaped with whalebone or steel. Warner Bros., the manufacturer of this corset, specialized in using Coraline, a plant-based stiffening material. Coraline was touted as a more flexible and less “torturous” alternative to other corset shapers—meaning that this seductive, raspberry silk example was likely marketed as a “healthy” corset.²

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