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“I want to discover what I can do with corsetry in a more modern way,” says designer Dilara Fındıkoğlu, a few days before her show during this season’s London Fashion Week. The result was a series of deconstructed jackets, shirts, trousers and sportswear, reimagined using corsets. Fındıkoğlu called the collection “Femme Vortex” — an exploration of gender norms and the “systemic rules created by hetero-patriarchal men”, she later tells Vogue Runway backstage.
Fashion’s obsession with the body-distorting features of the corset has reached new heights. In his much-talked-about spring 2024 couture show for Maison Margiela, John Galliano put the corset front and centre on both male and female models. For the Autumn/Winter 2024 season, Mugler, Simone Rocha, Schiaparelli and Sergio Hudson were among the other established names to lean into the craft. Off the runways, smaller brands are injecting corsetry with new narratives around body and sex positivity, not to mention gender neutrality.
But with many still critical of corsetry and its traditional manipulation of the — usually — female body, will it make its way into our everyday wardrobes?
The use of corsets remains controversial. On Sunday, fans of actress Anya Taylor-Joy voiced concern when she posted an image on Instagram of herself wearing a corset, ready to don a custom Maison Margiela gown for the New York premiere of Dune: Part Two. While some applauded her for showing the reality of how she achieved the shape, others called it “unhealthy” and questioned the message it was sending about women’s bodies. Two days later, Kim Kardashian posted a photo of herself wearing a Mugler corset, to a similarly mixed response.
Proponents argue that, although historically restrictive, the corset takes a different form today. Designers are tapping into corseting elements such as a fitted waist, hook and eye detailing, and boning made using modern materials such as fibre-reinforced plastic, aluminium and linen, to create sculpting effects that accentuate the body, but in a comfortable way.
“Once symbols of constraint and oppression, forcing unrealistic beauty standards onto women, corsets today have been revisited and designed to offer greater movability while enhancing and flattering natural curves, to empower the wearer and boost their confidence,” says Marguerite Le Rolland, head of apparel and footwear at Euromonitor International.
The corset’s contouring and waist-cinching properties lean into shapewear’s rising popularity, say experts. The shapewear industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.5 per cent to $3.8 billion by 2031, according to market research firm Straits Research. Brands such as Spanx and Skims have led the wave: the company was valued at $4 billion in 2023 and is considering an IPO in 2024.
“As humans, we have always liked to play with our bodies,” says designer Alice Pons who started her Milan-based corsetry brand in 2021 and collaborated with Gucci in March 2023, creating a set of exclusive corsets from the brand’s archival fabrics, sold via Gucci Vault. “If you think of makeup, it’s about changing some parts of your face, changing the proportions, the colours, the features. If you think of heels — it’s to make your body look leaner and taller. Fashion helps individuals play and experiment with their body. That’s why fashion exists.” Corsets as an extension of shapewear offer the same effect, she says — a way of changing your body for a day.
Gen Z’s fashion nostalgia cycle is playing a part in driving the popularity of corsets, says Lorna Hall, director of fashion intelligence at trend forecaster WGSN. “For AW24, what we’ve seen is two approaches: the first, a focus on accurate occasion applications — so, sheer renditions that make the underlying structure of the garment itself the feature. And second, a much more romantic version that sits within a trend we have called ‘nu-historics’, here we see more lacing details with the item giving a nod to Regency underwear styling.”
“I love the corset as a couture piece, but also in a more everyday way: as lingerie or as a functional piece of shapewear,” says Fındıkoğlu. “They may come from the idea of restricting the body and yes, it has caused a lot of harm, but I think as a female designer, I like to look at them in a different way. We are all insecure about certain parts of our body, and with age, bodies change. The idea of corsetry can be taken into the shapewear form — comfort but also shaping at the same time. Corsets don’t have to be restrictive.”
Form and function
Yash Patil, creative director and founder of Delhi-based brand That Antique Piece, launched the business in 2019 after studying shapewear at university. He was inspired by the Indian kanchli (a deep round-neck undergarment with strings holding it in place attached at the back, with colourful tassels, similar to the European corset). Popular with men and women for weddings, his corsets have also been worn by Indian celebrities such as actor Anushka Sharma on the cover of Grazia India, and actor Sobhita Dhulipala on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar India.
“The corsets that we make are mostly worn for occasions and not everyday,” Patil explains. However, the demand for off-the-rack corsets in standard sizing has gone up, and is a focus for expansion. He adds: “Since all the corsets are constructed with a technical corset layer and the shell is further embellished and layered with finer textiles and there’s value addition, they can be worn as is, without any lingerie on the inside, which does the job of both; as underwear and the actual outfit.”
He argues that modern corsetry is body positive because it’s made to fit the wearer, rather than contort their bodies into unrealistic shapes. “Whether they are plus size or petite, it is cast to their body.”
Melbourne-based designer Karla Laidlaw works with corseting that straddles ready-to-wear and shapewear, sold direct-to-consumer since 2019. The brand offers customisable clothing options such as adjustable hooks and drawstrings to cater to different body types and preferences. Her experimental incorporation of corsetry details into various clothing pieces — such as a corset that can be detached and worn as shorts, and a jacket with boning for a secure and structured fit — attracts customers across the world, she says.
“Our pieces are worn everyday,” Laidlaw says. “The corsetry elements help to elevate what is designed to be a wardrobe ‘basic’.”
It’s not about being more “feminine” or meeting certain ideals of beauty, she adds. “I love when shoppers layer a corset over a T-shirt. It changes up the idea of what a corset needs to be. We don’t have to be exposed to feel sexy.”
Fındıkoğlu’s’s method of subverting Victorian corsets into modern-day pieces begins with de-assembling antique corsets. “I like to study the details and then make them for modern use,” she explains. In future, she hopes to merge this with new technology and fabrications typically associated with shapewear. “I have a few Skims and the way it hugs the body is incredible,” she says. “Going forward, to expand the brand I want to add a section of corsets as lingerie and shapewear, in a more daily way.”
For these designers, corsetry is a craft that can enable people to accentuate their curves or achieve their desired shape, without the painful, binding and oppressive associations of the past. “It’s not even about the silhouette,” says Laidlaw. “It’s more about feeling secure, rebellious, or empowered when you’re wearing that jacket, corset, or T-shirt. I have a jacket that has a cinch on the inside and it almost feels like a hug.”
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