PINCH YOURSELF
The corset makes a comeback
THE revival of the corset was one of the most surprising trends to emerge from the autumn/winter fashion shows that wrapped up earlier this month in Paris. On a wave of Victoriana, the sculpted, body-shaping underwear had segued back into fashion. Sometimes it looked very similar to its 19th-century forerunners, complete with stiff boning. Elsewhere, it appeared in entirely fresh, modern guises, on catwalk shows that ranged from Stella McCartney to Louis Vuitton.
But this is not just some arch trend in the elevated world of couture that will never survive in the less rarefied atmosphere of the high street.
It’s not just designers who are rediscovering the waist; this week, reports emerged of a sudden increase in sales of corsetry.
At What Katie Did — a vintage-styled emporium that specialises in under-garments that recreate the ultra-feminine look of the ’40s and ’50s — sales have increased by half over the past three months. The west London store, which also has an outpost in Los Angeles, stocks very traditional steel-boned corsets and corselettes — a garment combining a corset and bra. Madonna, Kate Moss and Kylie Minogue are among the clientèle.
Other retailers, such as eBay, also report a sudden shift, with sales of corsets at the online trader up 54% since December.
Rachel Bothamley, who runs the London branch of What Katie Did, believes that the time is right for a revival in hourglass figures.
“There always seems to be a resurgence of corsets in fashion every 60 years or so,” she says. “There was a peak in 1955 after Dior’s New Look collection in 1947, which made a cinched-in waist fashionable. Before that, in the late 19th century, it was the same.”
Arguably, the media have had a hand in the latest renaissance. Some observers believe the huge interest in Sam TaylorJohnson’s big-screen adaptation of EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey might be encouraging women to experiment with a garment often viewed as erotic.
Lucy Litwack, managing director of Covent Garden’s Coco de Mer store, which counts bespoke corsetry among its erotica, agrees that the film has prompted a radical shift.
“We have always had a customer base interested in corsetry. Fifty Shades of Grey has introduced a lot of new people to the idea of using our products . . . and gave people the permission they needed to try them.”
Likewise, Lily James’s starring role in Cinderella has helped to catapult the corset back into consciousness — the trailer, featuring a powder blue, tightly corseted tulle gown, has provoked much debate about James’s incredibly tiny waist, further emphasised by the princessy designs of Sandy Powell, the costume designer.
But it is, perhaps, another un- realistic figure who is most responsible for repopularising an impossibly curvaceous figure.
With her hand-span middle and famously rotund derriere, Kim Kardashian, the realitytelevision star, has been the most high-profile poster girl of “waist training” — wearing body-shapers or corsets regularly to redefine the waist.
Hourglass-forming underwear has always caused debate. In her book The Corset: A Cultural History, Valerie Steele, a fashion theorist, describes it as “probably the most controversial garment in the entire history of fashion”.
Fashion historian JudithWatt says corsets had been around without any interruption for 600 years, “until a brief attack on them in the 1850s, and then again in the 1910s, with Paul Poiret [a famous French designer who liberated women from corsets]. So they’ve been around forever, but they haven’t always been about giving women a little waist. They’ve always distorted the body.”
“There was definitely a renewed interest in the waist this season, and an assuredly feminine silhouette that felt quite femme fatale,” says Natalie Kingham, the head of buying at matchesfashion.com, who has just returned from the autumn/winter shows in Paris.
“Many designers referenced female icons, including Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall.”
Whatever the inspiration, the corset can still be relied upon to inspire debate.
For Phoebe Philo, fashion’s leading feminist, whose collections at Céline rarely deviate from rigorous minimalist designs, the incorporation of lingerie details in pale apricot satin and padded, corseted coats in her latest collection was a radical move, approached with baby steps.
“I feel like I’m always on guard for women not to be sexualised,” the designer said backstage after her show.
“I’m just trying to work out glamour that I find intriguing. There are lots of questions — the whole process was very questioning.
“It’s a question of looking at things and asking, ‘When is that too much, and when is it not enough? Is that womanly or girly?’ ”
The corset may be back — but it is as political as ever.
It is probably the most controversial garment in the entire history of fashion