Dress

James McCreary and Co., N.Y.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An hourglass silhouette with a princess-seamed structure called the "cuirasse" was created with a high waist, just an inch or two under the bust. It was an upholstered, exaggerated shape achieved with a corset and a spoon busk to cup and re-form the abdomen. American dress reformers, many newly directed former anti-slavery advocates, came together in the 1870s in specific opposition to such deliberate body molding.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art