I've run across this image in the last few New Yorker issues, and even though I (sort of) know what they're doing, I still think I'm looking at people with severe physical disabilities.
But no! They're doing corrective exercises! As described in the November 19, 1927 issue:
EVERY WOMAN wants a figure of smooth flowing lines. Corrective exercise and relaxation, as taught by Elizabeth Arden, will proportion your figure, lift your organs and correct every fault of carriage, of slugishness and of weight. Elizabeth Arden builds a lovely skin and a lovely figure on a foundation of superb health.If I'd end up looking like THESE women, I'll pass, 'Liz.
5 comments:
Their costumes remind me of some of Isadora's Duncan's; she died in 1927.
Also, this was the period when Rudolf Steiner's theories about eurythmy were being propagated: "The power of the specific movements work through the life body, or etheric body, to strengthen and harmonise where there may be illness or imbalance."
You should see the crazy-ass poses I do in my pilates class, which I consider utilmate 'corrective'. However unflattering (with names such as "downward dog", "double flextion" and the dreaded "plank"), I believe these exercises have strengthen my core (back & abdomen) such that my propensity for running related injury is minimized. None of these poses are feminine, which probably speak to their effectiveness.
Someday you'll have to teach me to do the "Downward Dog!" And also The Pony, for real.
Nope, there's very little wrong with exercise and keeping limber.
There are several of these "odd exercise" companies advertised in The New Yorker, and I swear at least one of them references Rudolf Steiner (it's so familiar).
I wonder if these were precursors to "spas."
pilates are dirty poses in spandez
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