comes to the question of personal appearance, and having for generations adopted the standard of a tapering waist as a mark of feminine beauty of figure, it is going to take character, perseverance, religion even to counteract this. ... "One of the most pathetic speeches that I have listened to in a long time", said a woman recently, "was that made by a friend to me the other day. We were discussing hygienic dress and the use of disuse of corsets. I remarked casually and tritely that it took a good deal of moral courage to give them up. 'Moral courage!' she repeated, 'it takes wrestling with the Lord. There is no plea I have made oftener of my Heavenly Father than that He would give me strength to persevere in this thing'". End of the controversy From 1908 to 1914, the fashionable narrow-hipped and narrow-skirted silhouette necessitated the lengthening of the corset at its lower edge. A new type of corset covered the thighs and changed the position of the hip, making the waist appear higher and wider. The new fashion was considered uncomfortable, cumbersome, and furthermore required the use of strips of elastic fabric. The development of rubberized elastic materials in 1911 helped the girdle replace the corset. This was the huge turnaround for the history of the waist trainer. The corset controversy changed in the early 20th century when the world of fashion circled back to styles reminiscent of the Empire silhouette. Fashionable dress was fluid and soft, with flowing lines. What rational dress reform was unable to accomplish in decades of rhetoric, the wheel of changing fashion brought about almost overnight. The waist became unimportant and the waist-restricting corset lost its significance. Paul Poiret was a leader in this movement. He replaced the corset with the hobble skirt, which, while equally restrictive, was different and thus readily adopted in an era eager for change. In his autobiography, Poiret wrote It was in the name of Liberty that I proclaimed the fall of the corset and the adoption of the brassiere, which since then, has won the day. Yes, I freed the bust, but I shackled the legs. The hobble skirt lasted but a few years, but its adoption marked the beginning of the end. Other designers such as Madeleine Vionnet, Mariano Fortuny, and Coco Chanel soon followed with simple comfortable fashions that freed the entire woman.