Corset

A tool and a garment belonging to a woman’s intimate wardrobe. Designed to protect, support, straighten and, especially, to accentuate the new shapes imposed on the body by fashion, it has been present since the classic era, constantly throughout the centuries since, except in rare periods, in versions that are more or less restrictive, with greater or lesser bulk, in a growing crescendo of violence against natural shapes that would reach its maximum in the first thirty years of the 1800s, until arriving at the image of it that prevails in today’s use of the term. In this sense, the exile of the bust, which would be Poiret’s great insight, marks the divide between clothing meant to veil and hide the body in a silhouette constructed according to particular erotic-aesthetic standards, and the loose clothing of a woman who was free and no longer enclosed within domestic walls. From the Roman fasce (bands) to the bliaut, a tight tunic worn in the Middle Ages, and from a doublet made rigid with whalebone (corps piqué) for a Renaissance dress to the pointed bodice worn with a large skirt, we arrive at the whalebone corset used for the unique purpose of emphasizing the figure as required by the fashions of the 1700s. The crusade against the bust by doctors, already begun by the end of the 1700s, would be continued with greater vigor when it reappeared, after a period of decline and after the French Revolution, in a form (1810) reduced to a simple bodice meant to separate the breasts. The bust expanded, constricting the waist, especially in the version with straps. The solid whalebones, which compress the body down to the hips, make it a real instrument of torture. Yet it would be fashion, and not any alarm over anatomic deformation or danger to health, that will cause the definite decline of the bust; although, even under the straight dresses of the 1920s, there would be a girdle to flatten the breasts and, extending downward, hold garters for stockings. The diminishing presence, in quantity and quality, of underwear after World War II favors the combination of bra and garter belt, relegating the restrictive girdle to the larger sizes. Later, thanks to tights, the leotard, a very light skin-tight garment with good support covering the entire body from neck to ankles, made in new synthetic fibers, would win its place. And yet, in the ups and downs of fashion, the corset and the lace or fabric girdle (or guêpière) have had their revivals, either for function, as in Dior’s New Look (1947), or simply for seduction.