Rib crushing or redefining: either way the corset has returned

By Arya Vamadevan

It would be an understatement to suggest that the prevalence of the corset in popular culture has just started. Only last week, models donned bustles and corsetry down the runway for Harris Reed as part of London fashion week. Popular interest in the shape and silhouette of the corset can be seen after the release of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. But perhaps the biggest resurgence was caused by Netflix’s Bridgerton in 2020. Obsessions with the beauty and femininity of the piece created ‘regencycore’ on TikTok, with people embracing aspects of the period in their everyday wardrobe, causing the corset to trickle down to an option for ‘jeans and a nice top’ for a night out.

Historically, corsets have been bound up in controversy and body politics. In the Victorian era they were popularised to constrict the waist and accentuate the bust to shape the female figure. This has been associated with unrealistic body image and patriarchal repression, reaffirming the sadistic notion that ‘beauty is pain’. However, its image as a symbol of repression is being ripped away to repurpose it as a symbol of liberation, reclaiming female sexuality. But how far is this change actually redefining?

This has been associated with unrealistic body image and patriarchal repression, reaffirming the sadistic notion that ‘beauty is pain’

Perhaps the closest fashion got to redefining corsets was with Vivienne Westwood in the 1970s, revolutionising the archetypal garment into a Punk symbol as part of her ‘SEX’ collection. Later in the 1990s Westwood created the ‘Rocco Corset’, re-engineering the garment to be easily worn with stretch fabric and soft boning, the corset was no longer constricting. She moved it from the private sphere of the bedroom, to be autonomously displayed on public streets. Her corsets are still being heralded as truly subversive, worn by Adele in British Vogue November 2021, and Dua Lipa at the 2021 Brit Awards.

However, recently the corset has been thrust back into controversy through its prevalence in the, some would say confused, costuming of Emerald Fennell’s 2026 adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Corsetry was worn by most of the female cast members which extended to the impressive array of press tour outfits worn by Margot Robbie. Westwood’s example demonstrates that wearing corsets visibly, rather than shapeshifting under garments, can be progressive by demystifying the careful construction of women’s attire and the amount of effort put into achieving an ‘effortless’ look. However, for this to happen an active effort to deconstruct the patriarchal notions surrounding corsets and the way they historically sexualised women to be scrutinised by men, must be done. Perhaps there should be an awareness that this seamless appearance the audience is presented with is borne out of pain and discomfort, yet this rarely seems a preoccupation in mainstream movies. Instead, like in Wuthering Heights, corsets seem to add to moments of eroticism, with the breathlessness they create through limiting lung capacity. They are often another tool to create sexual tension, thus serving the same purpose as they did historically, unlike the effort to subvert this in Westwood’s collections.

Corsets made everything about a woman smaller

Another classic image ingrained in popular film, is of women being forcibly compressed into a corset, usually by a maid, painstakingly lacing her up. This is a perennial scene appearing in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind when Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara is torturously struggling into a corset, and the very same can be seen in one of the first scenes of Bridgerton. Despite the often-comedic element of these scenes, women frequently seem to be painted as neurotic and desperate, but yet are enjoyed and celebrated later in their sucked and pinched state. In Pirates of the Caribbean 18-year-old Elizabeth Swan is presented with a corset from London by her father. Whilst being hauled into it as he eagerly awaits her new appearance, she says, “women in London must have learnt not to breathe.”

Whilst now modern reconstructions of the corset have made them more functional and comfortable, it seems that their damaging and excruciating impact on women’s bodies is not a thing of the past. Florence Pugh discussing her time on Little Women affirmed that the corsets she wore were beautiful but also that one would have to deliberate whether “to eat food or… to breathe” as corsets made everything about a woman smaller. Simone Ashley went further when describing the filming of Bridgerton, “it changes your body,” making movements are so challenging that she tore “[her] shoulder at one point!” After this incident, and other reports of bruising from wearing corsets, the suggestion was made to stop using them, but they are still present in the latest season.

Although, these impacts were a result of wearing corsets for hours on end, perhaps the brutal reality of one’s organs constrained and shifting can’t be so easily redefined even in the modern era. Nevertheless, for women the article of a corset remains a divisive one. But as historian Emma McClendon states “there’s something in the zeitgeist that is pulling us towards these problematic symbols of female identity and the female body,” which will certainly continue.

Image: David Ring via Wikimedia Commons