Waist not, want not
The Corset: that bastion of sartorial oppression, lacing together the perverse dichotomy of empowerment and enslavement. Despite women’s lib, the pill, bra burning and every other kind of encouragement to let our bits hang loose, there’s always going to be something about women and whalebone.
Dita Von Tees is rarely seen without a winched in waist; Moulin Rouge wasn’t a hit just because of its singing, and the new Marie Antoinette movie has had fashionistas panting as heavily as the bosoms encased in the characters’ own corsetry. Alexandra Rutter and Lorraine Damerell, both at Oriel, are modern day corsetieres.
We’re not talking two-for-a-tenner ‘bustiers’ from New Look; these girls use solid stainless steel boning, high quality fabric, specifically designed eyelets and hooks, and special laces that have to withstand brute force when lacing up. Alexandra yanks Lorraine’s waist in the standard three inches to a 24-inch circumference and hurts her hands quite a lot in the process. Lorraine nearly falls over.
After cinching herself in, Lorraine won’t sit down for the remainder of the shoot; apparently running up and down stairs in a corset is also somewhat difficult: ‘I tried it in an underground station once • I thought I was going to die • now I always take the lift’. The corset is still a desired item of undergarment; Because despite those boys who lust after the pre-pubescent boyish figures of Mischa and Kiera, there’s nothing more artistically erotic than a perfect hourglass.
The heaving bosom, the arched back, even the breathlessness: conversely, by its very constraints, the corset has a knack of allowing a woman to be freer in her sexual mysteriousness • who knows what lies beneath the taut fabric? The point that Alexandra and Lorraine make is that they’re choosing to wear them • and not for any man. They want the hourglass figure because it looks sizzlingly hot • indeed Lorraine’s perfect curves are mesmerising.
Like the women who choose to give up their careers to stay at home, perhaps this is part of the re-branding of feminism • so long as society or fashion aren’t telling you to, feel free to lace up.
But how can we long for emancipation and a 15-inch waist? Never mind the forced figure fashioning, think of the health effects: crushing the lungs, displacement of organs, fainting, constipation • I know we’ve all worn a pair of fuck-me heels that pinch like hell, but surely this is taking ‘suffering to be beautiful’ a bit too far? Cathie Jung, the woman with the world’s smallest waist, wears a corset twenty-three hours a day and has a middle circumference of fifteen inches - barely th
size of a compact disc. Crikey. However, according to Dr Ann Beaumont, conventional waisttraining and corset wearing is in fact perfectly harmless, provided it’s practised the correct way, and it can even promote a sturdier posture and healthier diet. Apparently it’s all about the ‘training’; so long as you repeat something slowly and regularly • the tiny waists you see in Victorian pictures were the result of years of inch by inch winching, starting very young.
No teen bras from John Lewis for your thirteenth birthday then. At least nowadays, unless you’re really enthusiastic, there’s no need to go for a ‘Devonshire’ - named after the Duchess of Devonshire who purportedly had two of her ribs removed in the search for a smaller waist. Despite the evidence that cinching your waist in to ten inches narrower than it naturally should be isn’t actually all that unhealthy, I remain not entirely convinced.
But then again, I was blessed/cursed with a typical hourglass figure so I’m inclined to think a corset would be a bit unnecessary, at least from an enhancement point of view. Perhaps it is all down to evolution: curves mean hips and boobs which mean childbearing and rearing are going to be right up your alley.
And as Lorraine pops off to a tutorial happily laced into her perfect hourglass I think maybe I should wait to be cinched in likewise before I make my decision… After all, a waist is a wonderful thing to mind.
2nd Nov 2006