Tuesday 23 September 2008

Corselletes, Corset Discipline & Institutional Hair and Fingernail Cutting

Today's posting was going to be one of those explanatory things - this one dealing with the corselet (corsellete), a garment that crops up in description several times in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 and will undoubtedly do so again along with corsets, corset discipline and other associated subjects in the subsequent volumes. I don't have time at the moment to post up any explanatory illustrations as I am hard at work on volume 2 and the writing is coming along quite nicely today so I don't want to interrupt my flow as it were. I have located some interesting articles and a suitable website to visit however and those links are posted below.

On a completely different tack: while looking around a forced-hair-cutting story site last night I came across what I think is a really great storyline, or at least has the potential to be so if it was to be continued by the author. It is called Industrial School Days by Harry Standing and is easily one of the best things I've ever read incorporating the hair cutting (and indeed fingernail cutting) theme. The tale has quite a lot in common with part of the INSTITUTIONALISED storyline in that the main character hasn't really done anything to justify her incarceration (so I guess it has a certain affinity with those so-called ‘blameless punishments’ so beloved of the 1980s Janus letters pages correspondents), secondly (and this part I love), despite being placed in ‘care’ initially just for the weekend it becomes clear that this period is likely to extend to 21 days and it is hinted that such a period could possibly be extended, quite legally, perhaps indefinitely (I certainly hope so). She has done little wrong, she is really there at the whim of others. Finally, the tale is based loosely on the existence of, and the exploitation that allegedly occurred in, the Magdalene Laundries or asylums of Ireland (See also the 2002 film written and directed by Peter Mullan entitled: The Magdalene Sisters, click to view trailer), a little bit of history that went a long way in influencing the direction of my writing in the INSTITUTIONALISED series. Click on the title above to link to this story.

Hopefully I will be returning to this post later today or early tomorrow when I will post up the relevant illustrations etc.

Corset article 1
Corset article 2
Corset article 3
Corset design resource site

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