by Abi Drewett
With the rise of the Kardashian’s unattainable figure since the mid 2010s it seems the media and celebrities have become obsessed with extreme corsetry and body morphing.
There is an epidemic of harmful corset trends and tightlacing and my god does this effect women’s bodies and body image in day-to-day life.
The media absolutely loves, nay thrives off, projecting these myths of corsets and the pain they cause women. The second a female actor wears one in a movie they lap it up reporting on her pain and suffering caused by this horrible garment and how women suffered so much in them, despite it most likely just being an ill-fitting piece made by a costumer who hasn’t studied the makings of corsets.
I mean when we think of the history of foundation garments stays and corsets are just bras with extra material to support the weight of massive skirts.
To be honest I find a corset miles comfier than a bra.
They just served the purpose of making clothes sit right and aid support and posture not to be tight-laced like we now assume.
In fact, if we look at Emily Polaire, who was claimed to have a shockingly small waist of 18 inches or so and was paraded around for this, we can conclude women did not usually tight lace down that small or much at all as this wouldn’t be at all impressive.
Fashion historian Valerie Steele claims tightlacing was only done by a small number of fetishistic or vain women anyway.
Nowadays on the internet we see trending pieces such as the infamous amazon corset which is firstly terribly made and won’t fit most people’s bodies correctly leading to painful wear and secondly is not made to tight lace, despite being used for this very thing in a TikTok trend a few years ago. It’s pieces like this which really aid in projecting these stereotypes.
With TikTok adding so heavily to the harmful corset trends I reached out to TikToker Time Travelling Seamstress, who posts content on historical fashion and shows her life wearing this every day. On wearing a corset she stated “I absolutely feel as though I am able to function as normal whilst wearing a corset”, she told me how she usually wears one for 8 hours or more a day. She went on to tell me how she never ever tightlaces as this was mostly a historically inaccurate practice and she does not see any need to.
“TikTok has definitely changed the way that people wear and think about corsets… there is a deep sexist history behind the perception of corsetry… why people still believe this is beyond me.”
This year’s Met Gala saw many a corset worn by numerous celebrities, like it does every year, however none gained traction like Kim Kardashian, of course.
Despite the designer, Maison Margella, being extremely talented when it comes to corsetry this piece seemed to have something off about the way it fitted. The second I saw the back of the garment it was obvious.
Tightlacing.
Who else would we expect this from though?
To reiterate the previous point, it is evidential it was vain and rich women tightlacing their bodies like hell in history, and in modern days it seems not much has changed.
Thing is this garment was not designed to be so tight, if Kim wanted her waist reduced down like we saw, the skilled team could have easily created a piece for this purpose whilst keeping her functional. The woman couldn’t even walk due to her decision to tightlace, it was ridiculous.
It was always uncommon for women to tightlace many opting to pad the other areas of their corset instead which we actually saw in the Maison Margella runway. And whilst tightlacing may have occurred occasionally this was just where the waist was laced tighter and synched in.
TikToker Time Travelling Seamstress stated “celebrities don’t understand that this is the way small waists were achieved”, which is completely true.
There is a prevalent yet completely unfathomed discourse by society between normal corsetry and tightlacing which is perpetuated by irresponsible actions from celebrities such as this one.
When worn properly corsets are fine yet she proves every myth and issue we have with them with the way she wore it. The uneven tension and lacing prove she was wearing the piece different to the way the makers intended.
However, tightlacing is a non-forced personal decision and has always been this. It is not an issue; I feel as though a woman can were whatever garment however she wants it just happens to cause an issue when not done safely. The woman was winded on the red carpet, something that shouldn’t happen even when tightlaced.
We always see an exceptional number of corsets at the met gala along with other events and fashion weeks, so why was hers so notable?
Her corset wearing compared to the others is similar to the satirical magazine pages or rants men gave on corsets and women’s fashions in the 1800s along with social medias responses. It is like a repetition. It takes away from the real reason corsets were worn. It proves this was not and is not the norm of society.
To gain media attention she has caused detrimental effects to the couture brands reputation and aided in the myths we as a society believe about corsets.