La Mechanique des Dessous

I went to the Musee d'Arts Decoratifs to see the exhibition 'la mechanique des dessous', all about undergarments from around the 16th century to now, how we change the way our bodies look through what we wear. Although it says no photos I thought I could take a sneaky few in order to blog about it but unfortunately I was caught, twice, and made to delete them. So I went out and bought a sketchbook, a 6B pencil and then returned to the exhibition. After all I am an artiste. Below are some drawings of undergarments from the exhibition.

It's quite incredible what women went through, the physical strain on their bodies in trying to get them to look a certain way. Not just women either but men too, though I have to say I found myself more interested in the female undergarments, corsets that comprised of basically metal cages, and huge heavy metal hoop skirts to sit under layers of thick fabric. Whale bone was used in the bodices of dresses to keep women's backs upright and to keep their waists thin, it was even used in garments for children. I'm pretty sure there is some sort of law that wouldn't allow that now, wouldn't allow children to wear corsets in order to sculpt what they believed to be soft and malleable bodies. 

I suppose you can argue that to an extent women still alter the shapes of their bodies through what they wear. You can buy bras with air pads in them to add cup sizes, you can buy pants to pull your tummy in and shape your curves to drop dress sizes, we still wear dress with boning in them. Ok, it's not as extreme as it was back in the 18th century but the principal is the same and I am sure that the phrase "no pain, no gain" still applies. 

Worth a visit as an exhibition I would say and on until November 24th if you're in Paris.