You know what we need more of? Fat women in Victorian-era stories. Some people have this idea that every woman back then was thin “because corsets”, but there are plenty of period photos with large women in Victorian dress.
Ivan Markov painting circa 1870. this girl is lovely, if not trying very hard with her maenad costume
this woman is probably some sort of performer, judging by her many tattoos, but there are plenty of photos floating around of thin Victorian performers, so here’s some representation of a less-than-proper larger lady
more on the average-sized side, but she has a taxidermied cat on her head and I feel that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible because I’m so confused
my beloved French fashion dolls, while their waists are fairly slender, almost always have little molded double chins that suggest a more ample size contained by a corset
actually all of the women in the photos above are wearing corsets. so why don’t larger corsets and garments survive in the same numbers as their smaller counterparts? for the same reason that mediums and larges are harder to find than smalls when shopping- more people wore those sizes, so they got snapped up quickly and worn until they gave out. larger clothes were more expensive then as now, so they would have been kept until they pretty much fell apart
you’re absolutely right, anon. as today, Victorian women came in all shapes and sizes
ForLoveFromFear 