Between 1910 and 1920, fashion began to loosen up. French designers like Paul Poiret encouraged the trend after 1907 by designing women’s clothes for an uncorseted figure. Their clothes were softer in line and followed a woman’s body rather than forcing the body to conform to clothing as previous designers had done. Within a few years women could finally throw away their corsets–underwear garments with long laces that were pulled until a woman’s body was held in a tightly defined silhouette, then tied to keep it that way. Needless to say, corsets could be uncomfortable. Meant to control how a woman moved and stood, they could, if too tightly laced, restrict her breathing, even her eating. Yet, many women found them comfortable and women of