The History of the Corset

A corset in the pages of 1939 issue of Vogue

Centuries before Madonna made headlines in pink satin Jean-Paul Gaultier, women (and sometimes men) were lacing themselves into corsets. Here, Vogue traces its controversial history – from constrictive under-garment to the AW19 catwalks.

The corset – a garment with a rigid, boned bodice that is laced together in order to shape the torso – has a controversial history. Long derided as a patriarchal instrument of torture that deformed the female body, historians now argue that that there was no one experience of wearing a corset, and that some women may even have found them positive.

Corsets were worn by women – and sometimes men – in the Western world from the 16th to the early 20th century, although corset-like garments can be traced as far back as 1600 BC. What began as a close-fitting sleeveless bodice evolved into an undergarment with stays made of whalebone, and then steel, that encircled the ribs and compressed the natural waist. The shape of the corset evolved over the centuries, alternating between longer varieties that covered the hips and shorter versions that centred on the waistline. Corsets helped shape the body into distinctive silhouettes, from the hourglass shape popular in the 1800s to the “S” figure of the 1900s.

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