Down to the bone: corsets have returned…but why are we letting them stay?
Article by Lucy Fordyce
Edited by Grace Kennedy
As a result of the 1990s renaissance currently working its way through clothing retailers, corset-inspired garments are back in a big way. Think blouses with lace up detailing, hook-and-eye dresses, or crop tops with boning and a tapered cut. Such styles might at first seem to be nothing more than potentially uncomfortable yet interesting examples of fast fashion, but the social and stylistic background of the corset’s return to mainstream is rather more complex than this.
PrettyLittleThing ASOS Missguided
Let’s make a start from the ever-controversial and undeniably influential Kim Kardashian West. Celebrities like Kardashian West, with small waists and curvy figures, have likely contributed to the return of corsetry as a traditional corset is essentially an old-fashioned version of the waist trainers they promote on Instagram. Modern “true” corsets usually use a combination of steel boning and back lacing to do much the same job as a waist trainer does with tight fabrics such as latex, though the resulting reduction in waist size can be far greater. Health professionals and historians have long raised concerns about the dangers of both these garments if worn incorrectly, which is an increased risk as they move outside the realms of celebrities who have easy access to professional help and niche but generally well-informed groups such as antique clothing enthusiasts.
After all, even corsets that have been put on “properly” can cause issues - see Kardashian West having to learn how to breathe differently for her extreme 2019 Met Gala dress. It’s likely that corsets and generally heavy or warm clothing contributed to why so many aristocratic women in the Victorian era frequently fainted. This also happened to Elle Fanning at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival (Left), where a bad combination of an overly tight corseted dress (1950s Prada) and her period caused her to fall out her chair. Her older sister, Dakota (Right), has also commented on the discomfort of the corseted clothing she wore in The Alienist, a TV show set in the 1890s. Many of us have heard it said that “beauty is pain”… but shouldn’t we be moving past that by now?
Kim Kardashian Met Gala 2019 Look by Thierry Mugler
Courtney Love in the 90s
It thus seems rather absurd that corset-esque clothes would ever come back into fashion in the first place – they are associated, if rather loosely (pardon the pun), with garments closely linked to poor health and the limitation of women. Yet there remains some rather clever irony in corsets being appropriated by today’s women as what was once a basic symbol of restriction has since been worn voluntarily as a form of self-expression and reclamation of sexuality. Take for example Courtney Love, lead singer of 90s grunge band Hole, who is perhaps as well known for her “sexy messy” style – which often incorporated slips and corsets - as she is for her marriage to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. Love’s vocals switch between soft tones and harsh screams on songs about body image, consent, and sexual violence, exploring the dark side of being a woman in a manner at once stereotypically “feminine” and furiously confrontational. The irony of Love being a “girly blonde” in a lace-up dress and ripped tights, like Marilyn Monroe after a long night on the town, was as deliberate as the irony of her lyrics and delivery, a comment on female anger being “real” and justified no matter how “pretty” or “approachable-looking” the package in which it comes.
Album cover of Hole’s Live Through This, released 1994, depicting a pageant winner who has lost her idealised poise.
Singer and dancer Normani Kordei wearing a Savage X Fenty corset and robe.
Fast forward nearly thirty years and, in an era of reproductive rights debates and #MeToo, the ability and right to take control of your own narrative is as important as it ever was. Dressing and acting for the self is a key principle behind Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty brand, an underwear line that believes in ‘making your own rules and expressing your mood, character and style for you – not for someone else,’ and which has moreover been called lingerie ‘created for the female gaze, not the male gaze.’ Yes, Savage X does sell corsets, just like how the fast fashion stores mentioned earlier sell corset-inspired clothing. Yes, some of these pieces may be structurally similar to the 19th century faint-causing-death-traps above but what this modern corsetry signifies couldn’t be more different – the freedom of whoever wears it to feel comfortable in their own skin, to engage with the past and present of fashion (and femininity) on their own terms.