Granger 15
- This article is a Biography
- Chapter 15 - Laurence Lenton
When Mme Lorette packed up, we were left high and dry. I urgently needed some more corsets and I was hoping that we might get further reductions to her waistline. With Mme Lorette's corsets the reduction had been done with little real pain and suffering. Could we find another corset maker to continue the process?
After some perusal of correspondence we had before, we decided we would try Laurence Lenton, who advertised regularly in London Life and also sent in occasional letters and articles about tight lacing. The illustration on the advertisement was of a delightful straight front wasp waisted corset on a model. Just the figure we wanted. We wrote for measurement forms and samples of materials from which we finally decided to have a pair made in a lovely black satin broche. As before, I decided that Ethel must have plenty of support over the abdomen, although not with an underbelt this time.
There had been a photo of a modal in London Life wearing a very long pair with lacing below the bottom of the busks and this was the type I decided upon. They were to be 6 inches high above the waist in the front, right up under the armpits at the sides and even higher at the back. At the bottom they were to come down well over the hips, and made to lace together in the front for 6 inches below the busks. He said he had stiff plates for stiffening behind the front busks, but when I saw them I said they were quite useless, so I supplied him with one of my own saw-blade front bars to fit.
We did go to him as usual for a fitting. We found his address without difficulty. The corsets had been ordered to the sizes and description I had given and we were there to see him for a fitting. This time the waist was to be 15½ inches in black satin broche, for we were pressing on slowly, about ½ inch at a time reduction. Also, as these were a change from the short pair of Mme Lorette, to an increased length, the reduction would be more difficult and restrictive, but I liked to see Ethel made as helpless as possible; although as we learned later, to make real reductions, the short corsets were ideal, but for real figure formation and rigidity the long corsets were designed for the job. During Ethel's training we used both kinds, the short ones to pull the waist smaller and the long ones to consolidate the figure.
Mr Lenton was a tall pleasant figure of a fellow with grey hair. He had been an engineer but had turned his training to the art of designing corsets and the making of machinery for their production. Taking us round the workroom, he showed us the various machines for sewing, punching out eyelets, cutting out tables and patterns. We saw some of the lovely materials, coutils, brocades, satins and silks, especially leather, kid and calf. There were corsets partly made, of leather. He showed us some of his patented eyeletted back steels. There were photos of some of his customers, some with really tiny waists of 15 inches or less and some of them had appeared in London Life. Miss Betty Spinks was one of them, for a long time a devotee of the tightlacing cult. There were other items there; plated cuffs and leg iron cuffs for the ankles, collars for the neck chains and chastity belts made for some of his customers who went in for restrictions beyond corseting, such as the delights of bondage in various forms which can have delights for the inflictor of the torture, and strangely enough, even for the sufferer, usually a woman.
He suggested his own patent idea for the back steels, plates about 5/8 inch wide, drilled to take eyelets. With this system there was only one back steel on each side of the lacing, with the wide eyeletted bars close to the edge instead of in between two narrow back steel on each edge. This was a good idea in one way, for it prevented the eyelets dragging out under the strain of tight lacing and there was not a second steel to turn edgewise when the corsets were not fully laced. But the drilling weakened the steels so that they easily snapped in two. When they broke they cut through the material and into the flesh, and there was little one could do to mend them unless Lenton could be induced to put in new steels. But we found that unlike Mme Lorette, he did not like doing any repairs. So this feature became an expense, for often good corsets came to an untimely end with one broken steel. Then again the wide steels, when unlaced, tended to turn on edge when they put pressure on the backbone nipping the flash between the steels when there was any opening there.
Ethel's back became very painful from this defect, to take the pressure off the sore places on the back bone I made a rectangle of white kid leather about 5 by 4 inches, which was put under the lacing at the back of the corset to take the pressure of the back steels and the laces. This solved part or the problem with these corsets. Often we put a pad of cotton wool underneath the leather pad, and she sometimes wore pads of cotton wool inside her corsets in places where they were chafing her skin. Also we treated the places with witch hazel. She wore these until the soreness disappeared. This padding inside the corsets actually reduced the real size also of the waist inside as each little piece inside had to be accommodated by the flesh giving way as the amount of space to be allowed by the corsets was restricted by the waist size of the corsets.
We had quickly learned that corsets are made to be worn closed, or nearly so, and with the slightest opening, the back steel in tiny waisted models tend to turn on their edges and so cut into the flesh. One thing about these new back steels, they made it easier to lace in, for they would not bow out at the waist so easily as the others would often do, but if they did they were much more painful, but this would only happen it they were open a fair amount. We finally found an answer to remedy this bowing open in other styles. Normally the waist of the corset is the tightest pleas, for this is where the reduction is supposed to be. They were made so, for as we took the waist in to a smaller size, we gave a little more room above and below to make space for the flesh to go to. Thus when lacing, one finds the top and bottom will come in with ease if the corsets are given the full measurements for these parts. The idea is not to compress these parts but to allow them to enlarge but meanwhile the waist resists compression and wants to open up. This force to open at the waist line at the back tends to turn the steels over on each side as the gap begins to increase there. Even if the corsets are laced quite straight when first put on, so there is a parallel opening in the back lacing, the looseness of the lacing above and below, works itself into the waist, so that a wider opening develops there.
Even if the lacing were parallel and remained so it would not be correct. Really if the steels are to lie flat when the corsets are not completely closed, the opening above and below the waistline should be LARGER than at the waist in the same proportion as these parts. E.g. if the waist measure is half that of the bust and hips, then the back opening at the waist should be half as large as the opening at the top and bottom of the lacing, so the lace opening is wasp waisted in shape too. When corsets are completely closed, there is no spare lace to work into the waist and the bones will always lie flat, if the corsets are properly made.
We found the proper answer to keep the waist line laces with the smallest part of the opening as short as possible and retain it so. This was to insert a small, short piece of lace through the same holes as the ordinary laces, but only at the two to four holes at the actual waistline, so at that point there was double lacing. When the main laces had been pulled in as tightly as possible, then this small piece of additional lace was pulled up as tightly as possible, tied firmly, and if necessary the ends cut off. Afterwards, if the top or bottom parts of the lacing had pulled in more than they should while lacing the corset, the main lace was untied, the waist part now being held by the short piece of lacing, then the lacing was allowed to slacken above and below, working the laces up and down to give the wasp like opening which was the ideal shape to allow the back steels to lie flat to the curves of the body. The lacing was then retied leaving the main strain at the waist to be held by the short length of lacing alone. When the corsets could be fully closed, then the two laces would be acting together. One long lace would make many of these short pieces.
But back to Lenton. I remember once he showed us some of the corsets he was making for another customer. They were in black kid leather with long laced kid boots, with high slender heels to match, and those could be attached to the bottom of the corsets if necessary. He showed us the hand cuffs and the leg irons attached by a short length of chain to match, for someone who wanted to be confined in every way. With them went a leather helmet with just eye holes and long black kid gloves both of which could be attached to the corsets at the neck and armholes. Thus the wearer would be encased from head to foot in black kid leather, and also completely helpless. It was possible with straps to pull the head back down to the back of the corset and to hold it rigidly erect, with straps to pull the arms back at the elbows giving the result of a helpless corseted dummy. He told us that he had one customer who could wear 15 inch corsets, and it was her picture I had seen in London Life, (was It Betty Spinks?)
Soon after they arrived, we put Ethel into these long black satin corsets with the 15½ inch waist and before long we had them laced up tightly from top to bottom so she exhibited a superb figure with a slender tapering waist of frightening wasp like tenuity, which the black satin broche material showed off to advantage, yet she was hold firmly erect by the rigidity of the corsets. Although we got the Lenton corsets down to fit we could never say they were as comfortable as Mme Lorette's, possibly because of the extra length, but also because Lenton wanted to give a longer taper down to her waist and would not give enough room for the lower ribs. If Ethel had been trained from infancy or early teens I suppose hear rib cage would have developed on the lines he wanted, but as she had started nn the middle twenties, when the bones were formed and set, it was impossible to bend the rib bones inwards more than a limited amount. This made them painful round the lower ribs.
Next we had another pair, made by Lenton. These wore a 15 inch waist, equal to that of Batty Spinks, made this time in a lovely pink satin broche, but as they were not so long below the waist, but longer than Mme Lorette's, they were easier to wear than the first pair. Since Ethel's waist was now most tractable, we closed this pair relatively easily, and I will never forget how she urged me to pull them close, to give her a most wonderful figure, as she finally stood swaying ecstatically on her high heels before me. She was laced in to the limit; her breath coming in little gasping pants.
Her figure had a classically moulded shape, with its severe straight front line, inwardly arched backbone deeply incurved sides, a prominent posterior, with exquisitely rounded hips which were positively divine. I put my bands to her waist and my fingers overlapped. Her waist was as hard iron and yet I felt that I could crush it in two between my strong fingers. She liked the sensation or my fingers encircling her waist and squeezing it and she said, "Squeeze at harder darling. It is a most delightful sensation. I feel as if I m now severed and my hips legs and feet are a separate part of me, so you now have two Ethels to adore and love. Take me in your and love me lots. "I picked her up and let her lower half swing back and forth from that tiny slender waist until she nearly swooned in ecstasy. She willingly allowed me to carry her to the bed and to lay her thereon.
Sometimes she felt a bit faint when freshly laced in a bit tighter, but once the was in, she had to stay that way - to get over the faintness - and she did. I have seen her spend all day walking around London in 5½ inch heels with her waist laced in to this size, and also tightly gloved to the armpits. Her costume skirt would be firmly laced on and over that, her white kid, leather belt once more cut down, so it could be laced to the limit. Her costume jacket was well cut in to define her waist quite nicely, though it was not as akin tight as I would have liked it to be. Even when she went out in a frock at this time, it was usually with a white kid belt with an ordinary buckle at the front, but this she would not allow to be tightly belted as she said she did not like people to stare at her as they would have done if they had seen its actual smallness.
However, any observant person could have seen that my arm went far into her body at the curve of her tiny waist, revealing the empty space beneath that loosely fitting belt. Also her style of walking showed how tightly she was corseted and her little panting breaths, heaving up her bosom, were another indication. I only wished that I could have trained and induced her to cultivate the real accentuated corset "wobble" from the hips that I have on women on occasions; but instead she tried to walk extremely stiff and upright always, with her tiny feet carefully placed in front of one another on their tottering high heels.
During this period of the 15 inch corsets we had also worked on her septum again. It had been fitted with the 3/16 inch black ebonite stud for a long time. Now we removed it and painfully she forced a tapering spear through to increase the size by 1/32 inch, leaving a bigger stud in place to wear for some months. Then we tried another and bigger spear which allowed her to pull a ½ inch diameter plug in place and screw on the nut. She now had a ½ inch hole through her septum and could wear the big ½ inch ring through her nose which she said was delightfully heavy, looking extremely barbaric in complete contradiction to that dainty figure. Yet she delighted in having it put through her nose, the joint sealed with the screw driven home, to wear this all night, where I could pull it when I wished. It was fascinating to see her lift it to eat and drink.
Sometimes she put the ivory spike through instead, which lifted up her nostrils. I often told her these would look delightful if she would let m put a jewel in each one. She said, "How can I? If you pierced my nostrils anyone could see it. If it could be done so that it was unnoticeable, I think I would like to have them done. I could then wear rings, pendants, or studs in them to please you when we are alone." As I didn't know how to do them, so we had to leave the idea unfulfilled for neither she nor I felt like facing the comments the wearing of jewels in her nostrils would undoubtedly cause. What I did not realise was, that if we had shown off her waist all the attention would have been focussed on that, so we could have got away with anything we liked. But her remark shows that it was not against her wishes. I certainly think now, that it we had gone ahead with the tattooing, it too might have grown upon her, and we should have had many designs done. In fact by now she might have been well and truly covered from head to feet. Women are really savages at heart.
After some time with the ½ inch stud we put in another spear and then another one was painfully inserted, to pull in a huge plug of 5/16 inch and this made it possible to insert the huge 5/16 inch ring through or a thicker spike. I had a full sized bull ring which was about 2┬╛┬╛ inches in diameter, of solid copper and nearly 3/8 inch thick, and I was hopeful that she might one day wear it, as I showed it to her and told her that was what I wanted to do. So again we began to stretch her septum piercing, working up by small fractions until the hole was nearly 3/8 inch diameter through the septum. The last sized stud was very painful and caused the end of their nose to stand out very prominently so the stud could very easily be seen from either side as her septum was pushed down. We did however get the full sized bull ring through after a time and the joint screwed up, and she said she felt a complete savage wearing it. Even after we withdrew the bigger plug and allowed her nose to go back to 5/16 inch it was not too difficult to insert the large ring when required. Somehow one day, I lost it from my pocket, but I know that I could if I wished, bring it back to the 3/8 inch diameter if desired. Nowadays, she wears a 5/16 inch plastic stud through it with diamante stones at each end of the stud. These catch the light and so can quite easily be seen, so many people must know that she has her septum pierced. Yet very few ever comment on it. So why were we afraid to jewel her nostrils? Today, as I will describe later, it is even more obvious, but only once did I hear anyone remark, "She has a gold stud through the middle of her nose." And this was when she was wearing jewels in her nose on each side to attract their attention there; but that comes later.
About this time we had a third pair of corsets made by Lenton, without the drilled back steels as they so quickly broke and spoiled an otherwise good corset. These were in black satin, a bit longer than the pink ones, with a waist of only 14½ inches, and as these were long on the hips they were pretty severe. Alas they were too tight over the ribs and did not wear very well. She did faint off once or twice wearing these instruments of torture but did get them closed completely to show an incredibly tiny waist. As we were not too satisfied, we hoped we might find someone else with whom we might got on better. We did have one more pair from him afterwards, and then we heard no more until later that he had died after an air raid on London; mainly from shock, so we were told.
What links here • References and Sources • Help • Contact info