The woman who killed the corset
She may have been consigned to fashion history’s graveyard, but when Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix sent three mannequins to the 1908 Longchamp races clad in her form-revealing dresses, she caused more than a bit of a stir. Literally translated as Tanagra dresses, the designer’s robes-tanagréennes took inspiration from the elegantly draped female figurines that were mass-produced in Ancient Greece. Slit to the knee and worn with gauzy underskirts, these hip-hugging, calf-flashing creations sent a media ripple across the globe.
But what really made these designs “go viral”, according to British fashion historian Susie Ralph, was not their show-a-leg skirts but their bust-boosting tops. Worn without corsets, the dresses swapped bone and tightlacing for clever cuts and strategically placed seams.
Despite initial scepticism, says Ralph, Margaine-Lacroix’s designs soon began to capture the imaginations of fashion-conscious women. One critic, Mrs. Jack May of the British weekly The Bystander, mused that “from no single aspect does this elegance offend the eye, the exquisite simplicity of the silhouette affording the absolute relief and pleasure” – relief, presumably because with the end of corsets came the end of bad posture, indigestion, crushed lungs and the myriad other health problems that they caused.
The world soon caught on, and the stomach-squashers came off. Margaine-Lacroix’s daring vision had killed the corset, heralding the dawn of a new, natural, ultra-feminine silhouette.
Written for Libertine
Frockd 
interesting article :D!
Thanks! 🙂