Frustration

I was sitting in my Intro to Art class and we had just started talking about Rococo. So my teacher (who is a very nice little middle-aged lady with a bit of a Southern accent) is showing some pictures of Madame de Pompadour and is talking about how if one is studying fashion she would be the one to check out since she wore such fabulous clothes. Anyways, she continues on to say how pretty Pompadour is and what a tiny little waist she has. A waist that should be about, oh say, 18 inches. And of course ladies would be cracking ribs to make this happen. ARGH! I seriously wanted to jump up in the middle of the huge lecture theater with at least 100 people in there and yell at her "STOP SPREADING THE CORSET MYTHS!!!" However, I managed to contain myself and sat in my seat feeling like I was a traitor to historical costumers everywhere. :P I've ranted about this to two of my friends who probably think I'm a little nuts... Although I'm sure they thought that before anyways.
As far as sewing is going... It's not. I still need stuff for my 18th century stays. You know, so I can crack some ribs cinching that sucker in until I get down to the very desirable 18 inches. Looking at a few extant examples of corsets, just to make sure I wasn't imagining things, all of them had waist measurements in the 20s of inches. Add about 3 inches for a gap and taking into account the fact that women in the 18th century were more squishable due to having more body fat people could easily have at least a 30 inch waist. Going to start in on a mock-up on the Elizabethan stays soon.
P.S. I've made many chocolate cakes this week. Mmmm... chocolate.