Jim:

The Symington Museum of Corsetry, established by the originators of
machine/factory production in the 1860s, Robert Symington Ltd of Market
Harborough, England, in the 1950s was donated to the Leicestershire
Museums, Arts and Records Service in the early 1980s.  There are major
displays from the collection in the Textiles Gallery of the Snibston
Discovery Park, Coalville, Leicestershire, and in the Harborough Museum
(which shares the former Symington factory with the District Council
offices and county library), as well as in the Wygston's House Museum of
Costume in Leicster itself.

Symington's at the peak were the largest producers of corsetry and other
foundation wear (now termed "contour fashion" - you can do a PhD in it at
the former Leicester Polytechnic, now De Montfort University) - around 20
million garments a year under their various brands, including Liberty
(and those famous liberty bodices!), Christian Dior etc.  They even
pioneered inflatable bras in about 1952 - a conservation nightmare
incidentally, quite apart from the fact that the wearer tended to squeak
indelicately even in a (strictly hands-off) bear hug!

More seriously, Symington's production techniques enabled working class
and lower middle class women to be truly fashionable for the first time.
In the 1850s the cheapest fashionable corset was over five pounds - three
months wages for a farm worker; by the early 1870s Symingtons were
wholesaling a dozen for less than 1 pound.  They were also pioneers in
employee welfare - with a full-time female welfare officer for their
(predominantly female) 5,000 plus employees by the 1890s.

Leicstershire Museums have around 5,000 garments from the Symington
Museum - mostly from the 1860s onwards, but with a few earlier pieces,
while the collection continues to the present day, with samples of each
year's designs (now mostly leisure wear, such a swim and sports wear)
still being added on a regular basis right through to the 1990s.

Patrick Boylan
(Director. Leicestershire, 1972-90)

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On Tue, 28 Nov 1995, JDEVINE wrote:

> Do you know of any odd museums or pseudo-museums? I am collecting
> oddities for something tomorrow. I am thinking of things like teddy
> bear museums, museums of underwear, corsets, pipes, razors,
> left-handed tools etc. The dafter the better. If you know of such
> could you please tell me, with details of where and when??? Thanks.
>
>
> Jim Devine
> Hunterian Museum
> University of Glasgow
> http://www.gla.ac.uk/Museum/
>