The Grecian Bend was a dance move introduced to polite society in America just before the American Civil War. The "Bend" was considered very daring at the time.
The stoop or the silhouette created by the fashion in women's dress for corsets, crinolettes and bustles by 1869 was also called The Grecian Bend. Contemporary illustrations often show a woman with a large bustle and a very small parasol, bending forward.
The term was also given to those who suffered from decompression sickness, or "the bends", due to working in caissons during the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. The name was given because afflicted individuals characteristically arched their backs in the same manner as the then popular "Grecian Bend" fashion.
Read more about Grecian Bend: Appearance in Popular Music
Famous quotes containing the words grecian and/or bend:
“Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious era is ever sounding and resounding in the ears of men.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)