Corsets make a comeback

Calgary Herald, Sunday, November 28, 2004,
Page: D8
Section: Entertainment
Byline: Barbara Balfour
Source: Calgary Herald

Center page spread in the Calgary Herald, Sunday, November 28, 2004. Red corset shown is a Melanie Talkington design, photo by Tallulah Photography.

Corsets make a comeback

They radically improve your posture, keep those extra pounds around your middle out of sight and take off the pressure to suck in your stomach when other people are around.

Whether you see them as an anti-feminist symbol of oppression or a stylish addition to your Christmas party ensemble, the corset is back in fashion. And it's here to stay for a while.

From delicate Chinese silks and satins, to leather, vinyl and even fleece, a corset can be sewn out of just about any fabric you can think of. With the use of sturdy steel boning and rigid plastic to help rein you in, a corset can reduce your waistline by up to two inches and still be comfortable; more whittling down, if desired, can be done over time.

In Victorian times, corsets were worn laced tightly under reinforced layers of clothing to support the bust and create a wasp-waisted look. But these days, corsets are meant to be seen -- and flaunted -- on the outside.

They're part of a larger trend that would make our great-grandmothers spin in their graves: wearing underwear as outerwear. It first came into vogue in the 1990s when designers like Karl Lagerfield plumbed the 18th century for fashion ideas, and celebrities like Madonna made wearing "unmentionables" outside of your clothing look pretty damn sexy.

"Until the 1990s, especially in Western culture, underwear was always worn underneath the clothing," says Stephanie Wood, costumer and corset-maker for the Theatre, Speech and Music Performance department at Mount Royal College.

"In my day you didn't dare let your bra strap be seen; now bras come with interchangeable straps and you know when a young woman is wearing a thong."

Despite our now-blasé attitude toward underthings on public display, corsets retain a special appeal.

"Corsets in particular have a strong connection to eroticism as they are tied to the repressed forbidden era of sexuality found in Victorian times," says Wood. "They're exciting, interesting, sexy and they emphasize the feminine."

For most people, the primary purpose of a corset is to replace a shirt and bra at the same time -- they might pair it with jeans or a skirt to go to the club, or wear it over a dress shirt for a more understated look.

Women can go dancing in it all night and never have to worry about falling out or constantly adjusting their bra straps.

"If you're uncomfortable in a corset, you've tied it on wrong. You should feel like you're being hugged slightly but you should still breathe well in it," says Calgary corsetiere Scott Prince, 30, owner of Good Girl Corsets (www.goodgirlcorsets.com).

A former computer expert turned clothing designer, Prince has been running a successful business in custom-made corsets with his girlfriend Pam Bjalik since 2000.

They get about 50 orders a year, mostly from Calgary, but also from the rest of the country and the U.S. as well. Most women purchase corsets for special occasions like the opera or a dressy Christmas party -- and, at about $350 a pop, a corset is certainly not an impulse buy. Melanie Talkington, owner of Lace Embrace Atelier (www.laceembrace.com) in Vancouver, has made corsets for American and European clientele, film and theatre companies and celebrities like Marilyn Manson's fiancée, a burlesque dancer named Dita von Teese.

She's also had clients come in for corset-like medical braces, including a quadriplegic paralysed from the chest down who needed help staying upright. Athletes who desire an hourglass shape, and menopausal women who want to feel more feminine have also worn her corsets.

Despite the hype, corsets are only unhealthy if you wear them all day -- that's when your muscles start to break down and you become reliant on them, says Talkington.

"In Victorian times, if women wanted to marry well, they had to emphasize the desirable attributes of the day: a small waist and a perfect figure," she explains. "They had health problems from a young age because they wore them so tightly and also suffered from prolapsed uteruses, complicated pregnancies and death in childbirth."

However, according to Wood, there's a new wave of research that suggests people back then weren't laced as tightly as the Scarlett O' Hara myth goes.

"Women were still looking after the kids, running the households and the farms and leading active lives while wearing corsets," says Wood, who advises taking the corset as a symbol of subjugation and oppression with a grain of salt.

"Certainly there were wealthy women who lounged about all day with their tightly laced corsets, and their smelling salts in case they fainted. But new research says largely anecdotal evidence of women breaking ribs and having organs removed because of too-tight corsets has been greatly
exaggerated."

Cathie Jung, who has been in the Guinness Book of World Records several times for being the smallest-waisted woman alive, would certainly agree with that. The 67-year-old belongs to the minority of those who take corsetry to the extreme: she has worn a corset 23 hours a day for the past 25 years, taking it off only to shower.

Using the tight-lacing technique slowly and gradually over this time period has enabled her to shrink her waist from 28 inches to an unbelievable 15 inches. After having three children (two by caesarean section), she says she wanted to try something that would strengthen her abdominal muscles.

"It was never a goal of mine to achieve any special size -- I did this very, very gradually," says the astonishingly youthful-looking woman in a telephone interview from her Connecticut home.

Jung says she never had any surgery to achieve this size and lives an unrestricted lifestyle.

To lace herself into one of the nearly 100 corsets she owns, she leans against a doorknob for help if her husband isn't available; she even swims in a corseted bathing suit.

She says she's never been harassed or abused, though she does get the occasional curious look or remark like, "Oh, that looks weird."

"I'm proud of my figure, enjoy socializing with the friends we've made along the way and I like to keep my husband happy," she says.

For those of us who just like corsets because they're pretty, it's a great way to bring the beauty and elegance of previous fashion eras into our contemporary lives, says Barbara Kozicki.

WestJet flight attendant by day, burlesque dancer by night, Kozicki owns two Good Girls corsets and is having a third one made of embroidered silk for her upcoming wedding.

"You feel so good when you wear them," she says. "You get such a regal silhouette. I used to watch period drama films all the time when I was very young, and I'm so excited to see them making a comeback now."

Corsets Through the Ages

- Mid to late 1500s: First corsets emerge. Shape is more conical and squishes the bosom flat rather than lifting it up.

- 1880-1905: The age of the rib-snappers. Corsets distort the posture and shape of the body into an exaggerated S-shape that push the ribcage forward and compress the waist. Concern emerges about damage to ribs, internal organs and babies as corsets were still worn during pregnancy. Some men wear waist cinchers in their underdrawers; military officers wear corsets to conceal their paunch.

- 1920s: Breast-flattening corsets create that boyish flapper look.

- 1940s-50s: Corsetry takes a dive. The metal, fabric and elastic used for corsets are needed for the war effort. Torpedo bras and heavy-duty girdles gain popularity.

- 1960s-70s: Lycra, control-top pantyhose and feminism squeeze out corsets, save for transvestite Frank-Furter who wears a corset in Rocky Horror Picture Show.

- 1980s: Bring on the shoulder pads. Power dressing puts less emphasis on large bosoms and small waists.

- 1990: Corsets shift back into vogue, with Madonna donning one for her Blonde Ambition tour. Designer Jean Paul Gaultier teams up to create Special Cuvee Piper-Heidsieck champagne in corset-shaped bottles; his perfumes sel in the same corset shape.

- 1999: Mr. Pearl, a London-based South African corsetier, designs a Victorian corset for Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) to wear underneath her wedding gown.

- 2001: Moulin Rouge spurs a fashion frenzy, with celebrities like Kirsten Davis, Juliette Binoche and Catherine Zeta-Jones spotted in corsets.

- 2004: Hollywood celebrities design corsets for charity fundraiser in October. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis sell theirs for $5,000 each; Barbra Streisand's fetches $3,000.