The Gibson Girl, as I previously mentioned, had a distinctive silhouette: a small waist, an ample bosom, and a graceful sway to her back that thrust the aforementioned bosom forward and the bum backward. In some ways she was similar in shape to a Barbie doll, and, like Barbie, her figure was difficult for the average woman to attain.

The secret was the swan-bill corset, sometimes called the S-bend corset. And in keeping with the Gibson Girl’s reputation as an active, modern woman, the swan-bill corset was designed as a healthier alternative to the previously popular v-shaped corsets, which created a tiny waist in contrast to rounded hips, bust and belly and which had dominated women’s fashion in one form or another for several decades.

Healthier corsets were not a new idea. Doctors and dress reformers regularly railed against the fashion of tight-lacing to create an artificially small waist. Health corsets were intended to be comfortable while still supporting the bust.* They were often made with lighter-weight fabrics, elastic instead of bone or metal, buttons instead of a rigid steel busk at the front of the corset,** and more gentle shaping. For the most part, health corsets created a less dramatic version of the popular silhouette but did not change it.

Dr. Inès Gaches-Sarraute (1853-1928) invented the swan-bill corset in the 1890s, at much the same time as the Gibson Girl herself caught the public imagination. As a doctor, she saw women with gynecological issues and other medical problems that she believed were caused by the inward curve at the waist of the v-shaped corsets, which put pressure on the diaphragm, the abdomen and “vital female organs.”. The long, straight front of the swan-bill corset was intended to support the abdomen rather than constrict it.

Gauches-Sarraute did not intended her version of the health corset as a fashion statement. She billed it as a medical device. But unlike earlier health corsets, the swan-bill corset produced a new silhouette that inspired fashion designers to create a new style of clothing and their customers to adopt a changed posture borrowed from the military parade ground.***

*Although a few enterprising corsetiers, and one ingenious society woman, had created earlier versions of the bra, they did not take off until dressmaker Ida Rosenthal and her sculptor husband created the first commercial bra in the 1920s in response to the new shape demanded by flapper look. A story for another day.

*** The two-part busk itself was an improvement that made it easier to put a corset on and off without help.

***At least while posing for pictures. Many women achieved the new shape with discreet padding for and aft rather than by hyper-extending their back.