A little STRUCTURE
A 1990s throwback has made its way from the stage to the street. Kathryn Neale shows you how to style the corset your way.
Iwas strolling in New York’s West Village recently and couldn’t help but notice the prevalence of the corset top. All the celebrity offspring who live in Greenwich Village were rushing to lunch dates, waiting for town cars, and all wearing variations of the style – under cardigans with jeans or under blazers with tapered pants.
It is not really surprising that corsets are showing up. Everything from the 1990s is back. Britney Spears is back, and free to wear (or not wear) whatever she wants.
Paris Hilton is back, as an activist working to reform physically abusive private schools. Even Lindsay Lohan is back, in a rom-com for Netflix.
Like the other 90s fixtures, corset tops have also returned, and they are no longer just for date night.
The most iconic has to be when Jean Paul Gaultier put Madonna in a pink satin corset for her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour. After that, they were the staple look of NYC nightlife.
I used to borrow a gold silk Dolce & Gabbana version from the showroom where I worked. I paired it with a pencil skirt and heels, and wore it with a big shaggy coat. These days it’s Dua Lipa and Hailey Bieber who are taking it off the stage and onto the street.
Any item of clothing so steeped in sociological trauma is bound to be reappropriated eventually. Taking something that inflicted such pain (all those fainting women), and redefining it as a tool of self-fulfilment makes a lot of sense.
And, of course, it looks pretty good. The whole whalebone thing has been upgraded to more comfortable mechanisms of stability. The new corsets tend to flash a little side hip along with your cleavage.
As always, there are a few key tricks to wearing a corset top without looking like an extra from Bridgerton. Here are some tips for wearing one and keeping it squarely in 2021.