Mae West: Corset Cutie

Growing old gracefully comes easily to some, but not to others. Vanity pays a heavy price in later years, and the aging actress may be one of the hardest hit in this respect.
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Before cosmetic surgery to enhance one’s beauty became commonplace, various alternative approaches were used to achieve the same end. Indeed, in the world of the theatre, the heroically corseted diva (to quote Alistair McLean) was the rule rather than the exception. Mae West and Margaret Dumont, amongst many others, both relied heavily on their corsets for most of their careers.
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I have chosen these two ladies to illustrate a point here, since their approach to corsetry was so dramatically different. To Mae, born in 1893, and Margaret in 1889, corsets were an everyday item. However, Mae, who tended to plumpness, used them to control her waist and present a figure that never changed. As the real and the fantasy Mae West blurred in later life, she was described, in embarrassing detail by a reporter who visited her at home.
Her face was almost immobile from make-up; her wig perched atop her head equally motionless. She could barely totter so tightly was she corseted and clothed. She never sat during the interview, but simply leant against a piano, cunningly placed so that her movements never required more than a few steps. . . . [Mae wore corsets made by Spirella.]
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Margaret Dumont, on the other hand, wore the corsets appropriate to her age and peer group. She was genuinely 'classy', and suffered the outrageous antics of the Marx Brothers with every emotion from stoicism to hysterics. . . .
- - this is an excerpt from Ivy Leaf's "A Tribute to the Corset" - -
http://www.corsetiere.net/