busks

The late Victorian corset fitted over the bosom and hips with curved busks that compressed the stomach and supported the spine, while the S-bend corset of the early Edwardian era, called thus due to the peculiar arch of the back this corset produced, caused women to thrust their bosom forward and their hips backwards to give them the hourglass shape then popular.

Edwardians Unbuttoned | Edwardian Promenade 2008

An alternative to the rib-crushing, vital-organ-squishing corset, this new invention manages to lift, if not quite separate, without the use of busks or whalebone, according to noted breast historian Marilyn Yalom.

Happy Birthday and Thanks For the Support The Nag 2007

And the Romans hauing that care, brought from all coasts of the world into Italie all arts and sciences, and all kinds of beasts and fowile, and all herbs, trees, busks and plants that might yeeld profit or pleasure to their countrey of

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation 2003

"They ` re hideous and the corset is cutting me in half, but I had to be sure the busks and side steels were bent to the right shape before I had William stitch the cover closed."

Time Scout Asprin, Robert 1995

Katie Jacka, her colour more set than it had been when she witnessed that marriage eight years ago, was as emotional as ever, her facile feelings only restrained at all by her husband's rigid taciturnity, even as her high bosom was kept up by the stiffest of "temberan busks" -- a piece of wood which, like all self-respecting Cornishwomen, she wore thrust inside the front of her stays.

Secret Bread F. Tennyson Jesse

This style of dress was very graceful and becoming when worn by a woman of slender figure, and those who were not thus favored by Nature made the best of their figures by wearing what was then called 'busks,' or more popularly 'boards.'

The Story of a Summer Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua Cecilia Pauline Cleveland

There was a bad harvest that year in the land, yet Gunnhillda gave Hrut as much meal as he chose to have; and now he busks him to sail out to Iceland, and Auzur with him; and when they were

The Story of Burnt Njal: the great Icelandic tribune, jurist, and counsellor Unknown

The pageant of the Middle Ages, when hose were hose and covered the whole leg, and jagged sleeves hung down beside them; Elizabeth's ladies with their rigid busks and farthingales; Georgian beauties in flowered paduasoy; the high breasts and flowing draperies of the Regency; and, best of all, the "little milliner," without whose aid, it seems, no scion of the Victorian aristocracy could sow his first wild oats.

Try Anything Twice 1938

Even when the Pilgrims were in Holland the preachers had been deeply disturbed over the dress of their minister's wife, Madam Johnson, who wore "lawn coives" and busks, and a velvet hood, and "whalebones in her petticoat bodice," and worst of all, "a topish hat."

Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

Another token of affection and skill from the whittler were carved busks, which were the broad and strong strips of wood placed in corsets or stays to help to form and preserve the long-waisted, stiff figure then fashionable.

Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881