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History os Corsets

The First Models of Corsets were used in Old Greece, Antiquity.

Since first, they have been always used for supporting and controlling woman natural body shape.

Between Antiquity and Average Age, the breast and the waist support were generally made with fabric bands. In the XIII and XIV centuries, the support was made with a help from rigid material incorporated to the vests, helping modeling the body in a lanky form.

Since France, XVI century, Corsets have been seen regularly inside woman’s wardrobes.

First, the waist reduction was very minimum; the bust was lifted and pressured, and back kept in a straight line posture, as so distinct, as it was expected from a Lady.

Today, the Corset is a pure element of style, an incomparable universal piece of elegance and seduction. 

Far away from an ancestral torture objects, Corsets come renewed, each fashion stations, to generate new and old temptations.

 The original versions felt into disuse.

Structure is the main attribute of the pieces that came from the past. Only the sensual and irresistible appealing of the pieces remains today Even though the corset may be not a basic piece, it has never disappeared from the women fantasies and wardrobes. May be inside the best Designers collections, maybe modeling woman’s body, all around the world, The Corset is the biggest thermometer of feminine apparel power.

Bianca Lyons show the increased female curves made by corset. 1902

The corset is a garment that has undergone many changes over the years. Originally, the garment we now know as the corset was known as stays in the early 16th century. It was a simple bodice, with tabs at the waist, stiffened by horn, buckram, and whalebone (Steele, 6).

The center front was further reinforced by a busk made of ivory, wood, or metal. It was most often laced from the back, and was, at first, a garment reserved for the aristocracy.

Stays took a different form in the 18th century, whale bone began to be used more, and there was more boning used in the garment. The shape of the stays changed as well. The stays were low and wide in the front, while in the back they reached up to the neck. The straps of the stays were attached in the back and tied at the front sides.

The purpose of 18th century stays was to emphasise the bust, while drawing the shoulders back. At this time, the eyelets were reinforced with stitches, and were not placed across from one another, but staggered. This allowed the stays to be spiral laced. One end of the stay lace is inserted and knotted in the bottom eyelet, the other end is wound through the stays’ eyelets and tightened on the top. To tighten the laces the wearer had to hold onto something, as this method of lacing pulled the wearer from side to side as it was tightened.(Steele, 22)

At this time, there were two other variants of stays, jumps, which were looser stays with attached sleeves, like a jacket, and corsets.(Steele, 27)

Corsets were originally quilted waistcoats, worn by French women as an alternative to stiff corsets.(Steele,29) They were only quilted linen, laced in the front, and un-boned. This garment was meant to be worn on informal occasions, while stays were worn for court dress. In the 1790s, stays fell out of fashion. This development coincided with the French Revolution, and the adoption of neoclassical styles of dress. Interestingly, it was the men, Dandies, who began to wear corsets.(Steele, 36) The fashion persisted thorough the 1840s, though after 1850 men who wore corsets claimed they needed them for “back pain” (Steele 39).

Stays went away in the late 18th century, but the corset remained. Corsets in the early 19th century lengthened to the hip, the lower tabs replaced by gussets at the hip. Room was made for the bust in front with more gussets, and the back lowered. The shoulder straps disappeared in the 1840s for normal wear.(Waugh, 77)

In the 1820s, fashion changed again, with the waistline lowered back to almost the natural position. Corsets began to be made with some padding and boning. Corsets began to be worn by all classes of society. Some women made their own, while others bought their corsets. Corsets were one of the first mass produced garments for women. Corsets began to be more heavily boned in the 1840s. By 1850, steel boning became popular.

With the advent of metal eyelets, tight lacing became possible. The position of the eyelets changed, they were now situated across from one another at the back. The front was now fastened with a metal busk in front. Corsets were mostly white. The corsets of the 1850s-1860s were shorter than the corsets of the 1800s through 1840s. This was because of a change in the silhouette of women’s fashion. The 1850s and 60s emphasized the hoopskirt. After the 1860s, when the hoop fell out of style, the corset became longer to mold the abdomen, exposed by the new lines of the princess or cuirass style.

During the Edwardian period, the straight front corset was introduced. This corset was straight in front, with a pronounced curve at the back that forced the upper body forward, and the derrière out. This style was worn from 1900-1908 (Steele 144).

The corset reached its longest length in the early 20th century. The longline corset at first reached from the bust down to the upper thigh. There was also a style of longline corset that started under the bust, and necessitated the wearing of a brasserie. This style was meant to complement the new sillhouette. It was a boneless style, much closer to a modern girdle than the traditional corset. The longline style was abandoned during World War I.

The corset fell from fashion in the 1920s in Europe and America, replaced by girdles and elastic brassieres, but survived as an article of costume. Originally an item of lingerie, the corset has become a popular item of outerwear in the fetish, BDSM and goth subcultures.

In the fetish and BDSM literature, there is often much emphasis on tightlacing. In this case, the corset may still be underwear rather than outerwear.

There was a brief revival of the corset in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in the form of the waist cincher sometimes called a “waspie”. This was used to give the hourglass figure dictated by Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’. However, use of the waist cincher was restricted to haute couture, and most women continued to use girdles. This revival was brief, as the New Look gave way to a less dramatically-shaped silhouette.

Since the late 1980s, the corset has experienced periodic revivals, which have usually originated in haute couture and which have occasionally trickled through to mainstream fashion. These revivals focus on the corset as an item of outerwear rather than underwear. The strongest of these revivals was seen in the Autumn 2001 fashion collections like squeem shape shapers and coincided with the release of the film Moulin Rouge!, the costumes for which featured many corsets as characteristic of the eral.

Corset history, construction, information and terminology

What is a corset?
A corset is a foundation garment worn to mold and shape the torso into a desired shape through the use of rigid panels, boning and tight lacing. Typically they are worn to slim the body and make it conform to a fashionable hourglass silhouette. For women, this means emphasizing a curvy figure, by reducing the waist, and thereby exaggerating the bust and hips. The word corset is derived from the old french word “cors”, the diminutive of body, which itself derives from corpus, Latin for body. The word corset came into general use in the English language around 1785 and remains with us today.

Corsets throughout history
The corset evolved from the bodice of the middle ages. This was a fabric cincher that was worn around the mid-section of the body and often laced together in the front. You can see great examples of these at Renaissance fairs today. Throughout the 18th century in Europe and North America, the bodice evolved into an increasingly ornate and sculptural foundation garment and became the corset. Examples of these can be seen in paintings of Marie Antoinette, and other royalty from that time. As the Victorian era of the 19th century got underway, the corset became increasingly restrictive and was quite the figure shaper. Although the Victorians are popularly described as prudish, this foundation garment was considered highly feminine and quite erotic during those days. As the 20th century began, the writing was on the wall for the corset. The most popular styles were short underbust corsets called “cinchers” which allowed for more freedom of movement. By the time 1915 rolled around, the girdle and corsolette had nearly replaced the corset in women’s fashion. Only the older generation of women kept the corset industry from closing their doors.

Corset styles
One may generally classify most corsets into two groups or styles, the underbust and the overbust. An underbust corset begins just under the breasts and extends down to the hips. A shorter kind of underbust corset, which covers just the waist area is sometimes called a waist cincher. An overbust corset encloses the torso, extending from just under the arms to the hips. The effect is to lift or compress the breasts while exaggerating the narrow waist. Some corsets, depending on individual style stop at the top of the hips while others may extend down over the hips.

Corset construction
Corsets are typically constructed of fabric panels with stiff boning (also called ribs or stays) inserted into channels in the fabric. Popular fabrics include satin, cotton, rayon, polyester, silk, PVC and leather. In the 19th century, steel and whalebone were favored for the boning. Plastic is now the most commonly used material for lightweight corset boning and all of the corsets at Kuhmillion. Corsets get their iconic reputation by use of hook and eye fasteners in the front and lacing, usually at the back. Tightening or loosening the lacing produces corresponding changes in the fit and firmness of the corset. Corsets can be laced from the top down, from the bottom up, or both up from the bottom and down from the top, using two laces that meet in the middle. It is very difficult, although not impossible for a back-laced corset wearer to do their own lacing. Once the lacing is adjusted comfortably, it is possible to leave the lacing in place and take the corset on and off using the front opening (busk). A corset may also include attached garters to hold up stockings and historically, this was one of the important functions of the corset, as it was an essential foundation garment.

Corsets today
In recent years, the term “corset” has also been borrowed by the fashion industry to refer to tops which, to varying degrees mimic the look of traditional corsets. While these modern corset tops often feature lacing and boning to look like true corsets, they often have a minimal effect on the shape of the wearer’s body. Some lingerie corsets however do offer a nice compromise of both the shaping power of a true corset and the sensual experience of intimate wear.

Traditional corset construction has undergone a renaissance in recent years with a wide range of beautiful, high quality corsets now available from talented craftsmen. It has never been easier to find a real corset that fits your personality and body like a glove.

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The History of the Cigar Lighter

The lighter was invented in 1816. The first lighter was called “Dobereiner’s Lamp” (named after its creator, Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner). But his lighter did not use butane or oil as fuel, it used hydrogen. Another difference was that these lighters used platinum as the catalyst (used to start the chemical change of fuel to fire) instead of flint, or a Piezoelectric spark.

Common smokers mostly used matches until the flint lighter became more popular. By 1908, the flint lighter was refined enough and small enough to fit inside a pocket. Special flint made specifically for lighters went into mass production at this time. Obviously, flint is a fraction of the cost of platinum. Using platinum as a catalyst faded out and flint took its place. This lit the kindling which would light the fire that fueled rise of the lighter.

The development of lighters accelerated during World War I.

In the 1920s, lighters were still somewhat of a luxury for smokers. It would be a heavy setback for the average blue collar worker who smoked. But when the 1930s came along, a man named George G. Blaisdell noticed an awkward Austrian lighter that had room for improvement and acted on it.

He improved the ergonomics of the lighter’s case, so it was not as awkward to hold. Then he designed a perforated hood for the wick, which kept the lighter’s flame windproof ! Additionally, he modified the fuel chamber to be more efficient, and added a hinged flip-top lid. And voila ! Zippo entered the world of lighters.

After the emergence of Zippo, other lighter companies started popping up. All the competition caused prices to fall dramatically. Lighters then became a hot novelty and were very collectible. Ronson made their first automatic lighter in the late 1920s but did not gain in popularity, until the rise of Zippo. Dunhill became more aggressive in the production of their lighters. St. Dupont added lighters to their line of products. Also, Colibri began making their first automatic lighters.

The fuel used in most of the lighters in the 1930s was naphtha, an oily liquid that comes from petroleum. In the 1930s-40s, a ground-breaking innovation to the lighter emerged. It is hard to say exactly who conceived of the idea, but Ronson starting producing mass-producing lighters that used butane as a fuel, instead of naphtha.

A technology also started to rapidly develop after the first World War–Piezoelectricity. Like the lighter, Piezoelectricity was invented in the early 1800s, but the full potential of it was only first realized in 1917, by French scientists. Ronson used the same Piezoelectric effect used in this machine, to create an igniter for lighters that transforms energy into an electric spark.

Since the late 1950s, when the Piezoelectric spark was introduced, lighters have been used by almost all smokers. Now, there are more lighter manufacturers than ever. There are also many different flame types. Aside from a natural flame, there are now lighters that produce torch and jet flames and even multi-flames.

Today smokers might choose a different flame type as a matter of preference or because of what they are smoking (pipes or cigars). Cigar smokers usually use torch lighters and pipe smokers would probably prefer a natural flame lighter.

History of Fireplace Tools

Many different fireplace tools are used when it comes to building and maintaining fires in home fireplaces and each one of these tools has a different story to be told as to how they came to appear on your fireplace hearth.  This history will deal with the andiron, bellows, pokers and fireplace screens.  Also included with fireplace tools are shovels, tongs, brushes but it is rather hard to determine how and when these particular tools began to be used.

To begin our discussion let’s start with the definition of tool. This is a device that provides a mechanical advantage in accomplishing a physical task.  Archeology has determined that man was using various tools from the beginning of our existence.  A tool can be as simple as a stick used to poke at something to reach and move it.

Fireplace Poker

With that in mind let us start our exploration of the history of fireplace tools with the poker.  A poker, also known as a stoker, is a short, rigid rod, used to move the burning material in a fire.  Today’s fireplace pokers are usually made of metal with a point at one end for pushing burning material and a handle at the other end.  Archeology shows that we have used pokers as a fireplace tool since the Paleolithic period.  This period is the prehistoric era noted for the development of the first stone tools.  It covers the period from 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago until around 10,000 BC with the introduction of agriculture.  It represents the greatest portion of human time on Earth (about 99% of human history).  Archeologist think that fireplace pokers were invented right after the discovery of fire (790,000 years ago) and the earliest pokers were most likely of the same material as the fuel for the fire – that is wood.  At the beginning the fireplace poker, or “firestick”  was probably a large branch of some type used to help keep the fire going.

Down through the ages this fireplace tool has evolved and, as other tools were used, the fireplace poker has gone in and out of favor.  Up to the 17th century in England you might find only a fire fork and andirons for the fireplace but by the 19th century a fireplace poker was always used and the fire fork had almost disappeared.

The first successful mass production of pokers as a part of an entire fireplace set was designed and manufactured in Cape Girardeau, Missouri by the RL Hendrickson Manufacturing Corporation in 1898.  From that time until now the poker is almost always considered a part of the assemble of fireplace tools.  

“By fire-irons…the housekeeper and the ironmonger understand a fire-shovel, poker and pair of tongs.  These implements were not all of them found upon the ancient hearths of this country; nor were they all necessary when wood was burned upon a fire-place…The use of pit coal, and of close fire-places, let to the adoption of the poker now in universal requisition.”   Robert Hunt, A Treatise on the Progressive Improvement and Present State of the Manufactures in Metal, 1853.

Fireplace Andirons

An andiron is a horizontal bar upon which logs are laid for burning in an open fireplace.  Andirons usually come in pairs.  They hold up the firewood so that a draft of air can pass around it and allow proper burning and less smoke.  Andirons stand on short legs and are usually connected with an upright guard.

As man began to study fire and its properties in earnest it was discovered that allowing the circulation of air around the fire led to better fires.  Because of this discovery andirons became more and more popular.  In the 16th to 18th century AD they were also used as a rest for a roasting spit or to hold porridge. 

Before the 14th century andirons were almost always forged from wrought iron and were very plain.  During the period of the Italian Renaissance (14th to 17th centuries AD) many ordinary objects of the household came to the attention of artists and design and skill were used to product andirons.  The andiron reached its most artistic development under Louis XIV of France (late 1600s).  The guard (the upright portion of the andiron) was elaborately ornamented.  Patterns consisted of heraldic symbols, sphinxes, grotesque animals, mythological creatures and much more. 

Sometimes andirons were referred to by the creature they portrayed.  One example of this that continues to this day is firedog.  Andirons that portrayed dogs were called firedogs.  This plays on the dual meaning of the word dog (canine and inanimate holder).    In some areas firedog began to be used to refer to any andiron.  In the United States andiron was once used only in the North and dog iron, firedog or just dog was used to identify andirons in the South.  The Southern term is still used in that region but andiron is now used everywhere.

“Fire-lighting, however simple, is an operation requiring some skill; a fire is readily made by laying a few cinders at the bottom in open order; over this a few pieces of paper, and over that again eight or ten pieces of dry wood; over the wood, a course of moderate-sized pieces of coal, taking care to leave hollow spaces between for air at the centre; and taking care to lay the whole well back in the grate, so that the smoke may go up the chimney, and not into the room.  This done, fire the paper with a match from below, and, if properly laid, it will soon burn up; the stream of flame from the wood and paper soon communicating to the coals and cinders, provided there is plenty of air at the centre.”   Isabella Beeton, Book of Household Management, 1861.

Fireplace Bellows

The bellow is a mechanical device for creating a jet of air.  It usually consists of a hinged box with flexible sides, which expands to draw air in through an inward opening value and contracts to expel the air through a nozzle. 

The bellow was used extensively in medieval Europe (5th to 16th century).  It was used to speed combustion for a blacksmith and later to operate pipe organs.  One of the simplest and most familiar types of bellows is the manual one used with fireplaces.  The expandable chamber consists of a leather bag with pleated sides.  The bag is fixed between handles to expand and contract.  The inlet and outlet vents are provided with values so that air must enter through the first and leave through the second.  Thus the fireplace bellows becomes a simple air pump.

When we think of fireplaces we usually think of these simple bellows.  But bellows have had a major role in history.  Metal smelting was not possible until after the invention of the bellows which made the fore possible.  Bellows deliver additional air to fuel and raise the rate of heat output which is needed for smelting.  Around 3000 BC hand operated bellows were used for metal smelting (bronze). The first evidence of iron smelting is around 930 BC.

Though early man did not need to get their heating and cooking fires up to the temperatures needed for smelting they did discover that fireplace bellows made fire building easier.  Stoking kindling with a bellow produces a hotter flame and logs start much quicker.  This is especially important when you are working with wet logs.  Also, fireplace bellows were used early on to create an airstream to blow ashes out of the fireplace when cleaning. 

Today fireplace bellows are still a necessary tool on the fireplace hearth.  It is also a tool that many people like to design and make on their own.  Many bellows are made out of beautiful wood and can have very intricate designs creating an elegant object on display by the fire. 

Fireplace Screens

Though there is no exact date for when fireplace screens came into use we do know that they were first a form of furniture that shielded individuals from any excess heat that was coming from a log burning fireplace.  Early fireplace screens usually were shaped as flat panels standing on attached feet, or as adjustable shield-shaped panels mounted on tripod table legs.

Today’s fireplace screens come in many decorative designs and are made out of metal, glass or wire mesh and are placed in front of the fireplace to protect the room from flying embers that may come from the fire.  Sometimes they are used to cover the fireplace when not in use to make the area more decorative.

Whatever fireplace tool you use to help you build and maintain your fire, know that there is a long history behind each one of those fireplace tools and centuries of use has gone into perfecting the tool in your hand.  And remember that in modern society fire has evolved from providing necessary heat and cooking to a symbol of warmth and love shared by all that gather are the fireplace hearth

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History Of Apple Trees

Apple trees were the most popularly grown fruit tree in colonial America and practically every settlement farm and backyard gardener planted this easily grown fruit tree, or easier, the seed of the apple could be planted to establish a permanent food supply. Growing these apple tree products could be eaten fresh or could be dried and preserved in many different ways to eat at a later time. Historical instances on the existence of apple trees are documented from folklore, legends, stone images on carved tablets, petrified slices of apples on plates for tomb offerings, and overwhelming numbers of references from Hebrew Bible scriptures and innumerable writings from poetry, songs, literary publications, and many other surviving accounts of all civilizations in the ancient world. One of the earliest archeological evidences of apple tree fruit comes from the remains of excavations from Jericho, Jordan, that has been dated 6500 BC by radiochemical analysis of carbon atoms.

The petrified remains of apple slices that were found in a saucer of an ancient Mesopotamian tomb, the burial site of royalty dates back to 2500 BC and was uncovered in southern Iran. In the ancient historical accounts of the fruit of the apple tree, there appears to be an incomprehensible trail of evidence that no other fruit could match. The interest shown in apples by the Greek and Roman philosophers, poets, historians, and literary masters was even extended to Renaissance painters, royal chefs to the Tsars of Russia and too many other references to mention.

In colonial America, apple trees were grown and planted from seeds in orchards by William Blackstone at Boston, Massachusetts in the 1600′s. Early documents on file at the National Library in Washington, DC suggest that all land owners in Massachusetts had begun growing apple trees by the 1640′s.

William Bartram, the famous explorer and botanist, wrote in his book, Travels, “I observed, in a very thriving condition, two or three large apple trees” in 1773, while traveling near Mobile, Alabama. It is important to realize that these large apple trees found growing in Alabama in 1773 could very easily have been grown from the seed planted by Creek Indians. Those seed may have been obtained by the Indians from American colonists on the Eastern coast of the United States at a much earlier time or from French farmers who settles in areas of agricultural land grants north of Mobile. General Oglethorpe planned in 1733 to plant “various plants, subtropical and temperate, which might prove valuable for Georgian farms and orchards,” according to William Bartram in his book Travels, published 40 years later. William Bartram’s father, John Bartram, trip to “East Florida” (Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas) was, in part at least, an attempt to inventory the plant resources of England’s new acquisition—after expelling the Spanish from East Florida.

Many modern botanists believe that the improved apple that we know today descended from the crabapple that is commonly interplanted with apple trees for cross pollination. Old documents record that fact “cultivated apples descended from crab-tree or wild apple-Pyrus malus.” Wild crabapple tree seeds appeared on the list of collected seeds in the Plant List of 1783 of William Bartram and his father, John Bartram. In William Bartram’s book, Travels in 1773, he “observed amongst them (fruit trees) the wild crab (Pyrus coronaria) in his explorations near Mobile, Alabama. Robert Prince established the first operating nursery in the American colonies at Flushing, New York, in the 1700′s, where he offered apple trees for sale at his nursery that was visited by General George Washington, who later became the first President of the United States. President Thomas Jefferson was planting and growing apple trees at his fruit tree orchard in Monticello, Virginia, in the early 1800′s.

The legendary Johnny Appleseed was responsible for the rapid development of the apple trees growing and planting when he established a nursery in the Midwest that sold both apple trees and seed to be planted for growing into trees in the 1800′s. Over 2000 cultivars of apple trees are listed as being grown today, many of the trees resulting from the huge apple seed dispersion that was begun by the memorable ambition of Johnny Appleseed to entirely cover the landscape of America with the fruit of apple trees.

Over the centuries, apple trees became susceptible to many disease problems such as fire blight; however, Dr. C.S. Crandall from the University of Illinois performed several backcrosses that involved modern cultivars and the apple tree ancestor ‘crabapple,’ Malus floribunda. The wild crabapple contained an immunity factor within its genetic composition towards all major bacterial and fungal diseases of apple trees. In 1989, researchers from the pomology department at Cornell University extracted an immune fire blight gene from a nocturnal moth and transplanted it into an apple fruit, resulting in the total defeat of fire blight in that particular apple tree cultivar.

Fruiting of apple trees is perhaps the most troublesome characteristic experienced by an orchardist or a backyard fruit tree gardener. Most cultivars of apple trees require cross pollination of two separate varieties in order to set fruit on the tree.

It is necessary that the blossoms of the two apple tree flowers develop pollen at the same time, in order that fruit will be set, which can be a tricky problem to correct. The simplist solution to pollinate apple trees is to use the ancestor of the modern day apple cultivars, the crabapple, which sheds its pollen over a long period of time and easily overlaps the apple tree cultivar flowering period. Crabapple trees produce a fruit that is much smaller than the common apple, but it can be used in cooking in various ways, and it is loved by wildlife in the fall and winter when wildlife food is scarce for animals and birds. Crabapple trees are also valuable when used as flowering trees that begin blooming in early spring with huge clusters of pink, white, and even red blossoms. Several outstanding grafted flowering tree selections are available, such as: Brandywine, Red Perfection, Radiant, and Spring Snow.

Apple trees are easy to grow, and if a gardener purchases a large tree, he may experience fruit development even on the first year of planting and growing. The selection of the proper cultivar of grafted apple trees is extremely important, because even though the apple fruit can be grown in most areas of the United States, the trees require different amounts of chilling temperatures in order to flower. The interesting introduction of low chill cultivars from Israel makes it possible to experience apple growing and planting as far south as Florida. Certain popularly grown cultivars of apple trees in the United States today are: Arkansas Black, Gala, Granny Smith, Red Rome, Anna, Red Fuji, Yates, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Anna, Ein Shemer, and Golden Dorsett. Apples contain some mysterious quality that can preserve it from deterioration for centuries. Apple slices can be dried and kept delicious for long periods of time. This mysterious characteristic may be recognized by man’s association of paradise being connected and related to Eve and Adam picking apples from a fruit tree growing in paradise for their eternal pleasure, that was planted by God and described as the tree of life at the fabled Garden of Eden. We see this fruit of paradise recurs in the history of many other ancient civilizations. A similar account that we read as children in the book of Genesis from the scriptures in the Hebrew Bible.

Perhaps this mysterious genetic quality of apples in preservation makes it so important as providing medical benefits backed up by that memorable proverb, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Experiments from researchers in California have shown that apple fruit is very rich in antioxidants, a biological compound that combats, stroke, heart disease, and many other health problems.