Corsets, are they a thing of the Past!
I think not. In my new series called, “Ladies of Entrepreneurship.” The Ladies of this saga are Proverbs Thirty-One women. They are women who are business orientated, strong-willed and determined to live the dream that God has placed inside of them.
One of the scenes in, “Many Hats of a Lady,” tells of a young lady who tries on a corset for the first time. So, I did a little research on corsets. There are basically three terms used for the garment, – corset, bustier, and bodice.
The historical corset was made from heavy fabric, lined with baleen whale (most used) bones that were inserted into channels then sewn in the seams. It shaped the body into whichever shape the person wanted. During this era women suffered and rightly so since their bodies were being formed in unnatural ways. Some women suffered from collapsed lungs, crushed ribs, dislocated spines, and misaligned internal organs, even death.
The bustier is often worn as an evening top with evening skirts. It is the modern alteration of the corset usually made from lace, satins, stretch fabrics, leather embellished with beads, sequins etc; whatever the wearer fancies. Unboned or boned with plastic or spiral steal springs. It is less deforming that its predecessor.
Bodice is a general term for the part of the dress that covers the upper torso to the high hip. In earlier eras denoted a lightweight lined but unboned top worn over the corset but under jackets or whatever the ladies wore back then. Today, it is a word used as the top part of the dress.
And currently, I find the new craze is waistshaper’s, the modern-day corset. Most sellers claim a person can lose 1 to 2 inches off their waist in weeks. Ladies claim they look slimmer, confident and shapely when wearing the waistshaper. But, the downside is that waistshaper’s can cause breathing problems, acid reflux and sometimes blood clots if wearing the wrong size.
So, even though, the corset has drastically changed, it is still worn today with modern and flexible twists.
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