Spice up your undergarments this Valentine’s Day with a superb, bespoke corset from Get Waisted, or enjoy wearing one in a textural fabric like velvet or satin to dress up a pair of cigarette trousers, a sumptuous full maxi skirt or a cheeky pair of shorts, to reflect your confident fashion persona.
Toni Pickles at Get Waisted will create just the right corset for you, taking into account your shape, size, skin tone and colour preference. But what do we know about the corset generally?
Toni Pickles at Get Waisted will create just the right corset for you, taking into account your shape, size, skin tone and colour preference. But what do we know about the corset generally?
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| Perfect for Valentine's Day! |
Corsets have a long and interesting background. Originally a rigid bodice usually with whale boning and laced up, corsets were designed to contour the female body to the fashionable silhouette of the time. Corsets have been worn by women in the Western world from the 1500s through to the early 20th century, when girdles and bras became more popular. Men, especially fops and military officers who wanted to look their best, also sometimes wore them.
Throughout its history, the corset was frequently criticised as an "instrument of torture" and a cause of ill health and even death, although there is some disagreement about real medical consequences.
As whalebone became more expensive in the 19th century, lengths of steel increasingly replaced it. Traditionally, down the centre of the corset a busk was inserted, which was an item a bit like a ruler. Busks were made of wood, horn and whalebone and were often elaborately carved and given as lovers' gifts. By 1850 they had been replaced by a steel, front-opening style, which made it much easier to put on and take off the garments. Prior to this, women had usually had to rely on help to lace and unlace their corsets.
Corsets were also known as "stays," a term probably derived from the French estayer (to support), as they were thought to support the body. Children were also often placed in stiffened bodices supposed to make them grow up straight.
History is full of myths and exaggerations about corsets; for example the notorious "iron corsets" of the Renaissance were not fashion items worn by ladies at the court of Catherine de Medici, as is often claimed, but were actually orthopaedic braces to correct spinal deformities.
In reality, ladies of the upper classes were not the only ones to wear corsets. By the mid-19th century cheaper, mass-produced garments meant many urban working-class women also wore them.
By the 1920s elastic girdles and bras had largely taken the place of rigid corsets, particularly among the young. In 1939 and again after World War II, fashion showed renewed emphasis on femininity and corsets had a brief resurgence but they’ve never truly vanished; there are some for whom the corset is de rigueur for a shapely, sexy, feminine form and as an item to be worn underneath clothing, over t-shirts for a quirky, fun look or simply as a stunning, head-turning top. And now, corsets are shaped like an hourglass.
Surprise your Valentine with a unique piece of corsetry in a style and colour to suit you. Go on, we dare you!
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| Corset dress |
You can see more about Get Waisted on www.getwaisted.co.uk or contact Toni on:
Email: toni@getwaisted.co.uk
Steyning boutique, 98a High Street, Steyning, West Sussex BN44 3RD
Open 9.30am-5.30pm Tuesdays to Saturdays, closed on Mondays
Tel: 01903 812992
Mobile: 07947 497342
[With thanks to www.lovetoknow.com for some of the above information]
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