Corsets have been around for decades with the earliest known representation of a possible corset appearing on a figurine from Minoan art made around 1600 BCE. Despite how old corsets are, they always seem to come back into fashion. The dress reform movement of the 1850s and 1860s spoke out against corsets, but corsets still didn’t fall out of fashion for many decades.  

During WWI less and less women started wearing corsets as they were asked to stop buying them, since most corsets were made with metal stays that were needed for the war– but this doesn’t mean corsets left fashion. From around 1908 to 1914, the hourglass figure started changing, so corsets needed to adjust. As bras began to catch on in the 1910s, fewer corsets included bust support and covered the thighs and changed the position of the hip, making the hips narrower to foreshadow the1920s “flapper” silhouette. Christian Dior’s “New Look” in 1947 featured full skirts and tiny waists which helped ultra femininity boost in popularity during the 1950s. 

By mid to late 1960s, hippie culture and the rebellion of the youth led to corseted and tiny waists to fall out of fashion. In the late 70s and 80s, goth and punk subcultures started dressing in corsets as under and outerwear, bringing them back in fashion to a much lesser extent. In the early 2020s, corset inspired tops and dresses began to trend in social media as part of “regency core” and “cottage core” aesthetics, inspired by television series like Bridgerton. Let’s see how long corsets will stay in fashion this time around!