Life — December 26, 1912 — page 27: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a satirical drawing about fashion and body image. The caption cryptically announces that "a certain woman is going to have a new figure before sundown"—a joke about corsetry and girdles, the tight-fitting undergarments women wore to reshape their bodies. The scene shows a fashionable woman being approached on a city street by what appears to be a taxi driver or street vendor. The implication is humorous: her "new figure" won't result from exercise or diet, but from putting on restrictive undergarments that artificially reshape the body. The drawing satirizes the era's obsession with women conforming to narrow beauty standards through mechanical means, while the mysterious caption playfully avoids naming the specific woman or product being mocked.