Despite the Negative Perception around the Use of Corsets, Why are they Growing Increasingly Popular amongst Women in Modern Society?

Abstract

Historically, tight lacing and corsetry was practiced mostly for the purpose of fashion, patriarchal attempts to control and discipline women’s bodies as well as reducing the size of a women’s waist in order to achieve the ideal feminine figure. According to A. S Hornby (2005: 329) a corset is defined as, “A piece of women’s underwear, fitting the body tightly, worn especially in the past to make a women’s waist appear smaller.” This was followed by great controversy due to the oppression placed by the patriarchal system whereby a growing dissatisfaction among women had emerged (DeFrancis, 2005; 165). A number of women’s movements were established with the aim of fighting the “corset evil” as well as gaining personal, social, economic and political freedom. With the steady decline of the use of corsets in the early twentieth century, corset manufactures made efforts to revamp and revitalise these garments with the hope of; once again, increasing its popularity as the century progressed (Fields, 1999: 355). Today, the new term waist training has gained widespread popularity around the world where women are beginning to use this garment for a number or reasons including weight loss (www.womenshealthmagazine.com: 2014). Advocates of waist trainers and body shapers would most likely agree with the assumptions I assert below, but for those who do not use these garments as well as those who have a negative perception about the garment as a whole may read this passage with skepticism. And so for this reason I will attempt to provide insight on the latter as well as unpack the controversy around Corsetry (www.corsetreturn.com; 2014).