Fashion
The bustle was a typically Victorian fashion. Although most bustle gowns covered nearly all of a woman, the shape created by the combination of a bustle and corset (accentuating the rump, waist, and bosom) resulted in highly idealized representations of female sexual identity, at once exaggerated and concealed by the structures of adornment. A notable comparison is with the exaggerated images of the South African woman known as "Hottentot Venus" exhibited throughout Europe in the first part of the 19th century.
Bustles and bustle gowns are rarely worn in contemporary society. Notable exceptions occur in the realm of haute couture, bridal fashion and Lolita Fashion. A dress in the bustle style may be worn as a costume. For example, in 1993 Eiko Ishioka won an Academy Award for her costume designs from Bram Stoker's Dracula. The film features several extravagant bustle gowns created for female leads Winona Ryder and Sadie Frost.
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Famous quotes containing the word fashion:
“His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way, and blinking in the odd bilboquet fashion peculiar to eyelids in his abnormal position. Even more extraordinary than the variety and velocity of the movements he made in imitation of animal hind legs was the effortlessness of his stance.”
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