The Resurgence of the Corset

By Thalia Anobile

Once regarded as an instrument of oppression and compliance, the corset has resurged, yet again, in the last year as both an aesthetic garment and a tool of sexual and social empowerment. While the invention of the corset traces back to the Middle Ages, this garment became an emblem of female submission and sexualization as early as the 16th century. The corset branded an unnatural, tiny waist as the most beautiful body shape, rendering any other silhouette as undesirable. Although the corset was marketed as a device to support good posture and preserve a woman’s health, it unsurprisingly caused health issues, especially in the process of attaining this desired body. With each passing decade, the shape of the corset evolved to accentuate different features of the female body, often contorting the waist and breasts. The commonality is that the female body was deformed in inhumane, torturous ways in order to please the male gaze. The bodice was constructed with stiff materials including whalebone to cinch the waist into an inverted cone and cloth to cover the boning; other materials included wood, steel and leather.

A device to confine and control women, the corset was more than a way to sexualize women but a way to further distinguish women of lower and higher social ranking. Considering that corsets were handmade, it is understandable that only certain women could afford to purchase a corset. Although the social implications of this garment remained fairly consistent throughout history, the corset reached its peak during the Victorian Era. The corset was modified during this century so that women were able to do their own corsets up themselves and while this was seen as a win for some women, others began a movement soon known as the Victorian Dress Reform to emancipate the waist. Middle-class women began speaking out against the irrational societal dress code that was imposed on them, proposing that women’s fashion become more progressive and practical. This movement of reform desired fashion and society to accept the natural female figure and even suggested another type of bodice that would function the same as a corset, accentuating a woman’s silhouette, without doing harm. It was after the Victorian Era that the corset began to lose its popularity and status within society.

The corset has now evolved from a symbol of the patriarchy regulating the female body to a symbol of sexual and social empowerment. As the cottage-core and boudoir aesthetic has recently re-emerged, celebrities and fashion designers took the once fetishized garment and transformed it into an instrument of feminism, a physical embodiment of power and femininity. Whether an individual chooses to wear a corset to reshape their figure or to exhibit their body, it is in their hands to choose. The corset now is a garment that exists for anyone and everyone to wear, not belonging to one social class and framing the body to one particular body type, having found its place as both an under and outer garment. The corset no longer holds oppressive power; what a corset does and conveys is now in the hands of the beholder.

MADISON AVENUE

CREATIVE DIRECTOR CHANEL ROMEO PHOTOGRAPHER LISBET MACLEAN MAKEUP ABBY OCOCHINSKI CREATIVE ASSISTANT BEN EVANS-DURÁN MODELS BRUNO CHAN & CHLOE FILBEY