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‘Liberate rather than repress’: why corsets are having a fashion moment

Designers can weaponise the garment to symbolise rebellion, or play and experiment with historical perceptions

On the other it is precisely the negative associations that mean they can be weaponised to signal rebellion, as is perhaps best evidenced by Vivienne Westwood’s punk take on corsets – they featured in her autumn/winter 1987 collection, elevating them from underwear to outerwear. The “first surviving historical object we can reasonably call a ‘corset’ … [is] the funerary garments of Eleanora of Toledo, Duchess of Florence.” Its function was, she says, as a foundation for the elaborate gown worn over it rather than “to form the body in a way that was unnatural”. Although of course the argument could be made that women adhered to this ridiculous physical ideal in order to compete for men’s attention.” She notes that throughout the 19th century there was much male criticism of tight corsetry, “even going so far in the 1890s as to invent a ‘safety corset’ that didn’t compress the waist.

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