Corsets: The Curvifier!
by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com
Yes I know, there is no such word as ‘curvifier’, but isn’t that basically what corsets used to do (or still do)? The minute you say the word corset what immediately comes to mind is the scene from Gone with the Wind where the nanny is tightening the stays to Scarlett’s corset trying to make her already hourglass figure even more hourglass like!
The corset was meant to nip in the waist so as to better highlight the bust and the hips of the wearer; in other words to emphasize her womanly shape. There were different kinds of corsets in the past, with over-bust or under-bust corsets, and corsets that reached right up to the knees!
Corsets formed an integral part of a woman’s wardrobe in Victorian times. “Corsets, and the corseted body, have been fetishized, mythologized, romanticized. This Victorian icon has inspired more passionate debate than any other article of clothing.”
Quite amusingly, the corset was in past regarded as a medical necessity for women who were then regarded as delicate and fragile and in need of support. Must have been a self fulfilling prophecy then, with all those poor Victorian women laced so tight into their corsets, they were unable to even breathe properly and kept having the ‘vapors’ and fainting all over the place! No wonder fainting couches and smelling salts became so popular!
With women and their roles in society changing there also came a change in their dress, more particularly their ‘under’ dress, with corsets giving way to the girdles of the latter half of the 20th century. While a considerably less horrifying object, the girdle was still sometimes fashioned out of materials like natural rubber!
In modern times, corsets have (thankfully) lost most of their confining and restricting features and corsets are perhaps now used mainly to present a fashionable and smooth silhouette of the female form. The modern corset has evolved in many ways and what has become more popular now is the bustier, which I consider a flattering and deliciously risqué form for dress. Modern corsets and bustiers have none of the discomfort of their ancient cousins but a lot of the mysterious allure of old fashioned dressing styles which can be very sexy and very seductive!
