Spring and My Corset are Busting Out All Over!

Like spring, I am busting out all over in my new strapless tapestry corset.

Very uplifting - if you know what I mean.

I love the Venice trim.

Just enough support at the waist to conceal those few extra pounds.

Well, I know summer is on the way and I will be increasing my weekly workout routine.

Corsets are just the right sexy garment - they conceal what we want concealed and emphasize and enhance our figure.

What girl, or guy for that matter, doesn't appreciate more cleavage.

This is just the right sexy outfit to announce our new Corset page. Just like we did for Thongs, we have created a page for the hottest, sexiest corsets we could find from leading retailers and manufacturers.

Sexy Fashion Poll

Well, it been six months since we started this Hot Sexy Fashions column.

As you noticed, we have fallen a little behind in a daily schedule, however, we will now develope pages with a month worth of sexy fashions on each page.

I have noted that many of our in depth - feature articles generate a lot of e-mail, and are e-mailed to many of our readers friends.

In case you haven't noticed, you can use the the small cute e-mail icon at the bottom of column, to mail this column to your friends.

So now it time for you decide,

• do your want a daily column with more celebrity news,
• a daily column with more fashion news,
• a daily column with more celebrity - fashion news, or
• a bi-weekly column with more in-depth feature.

Just fill out the Hot Sexy Fashion Poll on the right.

You be the judge.

Corset Facts - Art

Lady Cinching Corset

2000BC

The Minoans of the island of Crete had a snake goddess who wore a fitted vest that helped support and display the breasts as well as leather rings or bands that confined and accentuated the waist

16th century

The Coche (later known as the busk) appears to straighten the front of bodices.

Separation of the skirt from the bodice leads to development of the corset.

17th century

A boned inner-bodice is built into most gowns, this eventually separates to become a pair of corps or corset.

18th century

Early in 18th century, many corsets have a separate decorative center front piece called a stomacher. Breasts pushed upward and together

1938

Nylon developed and underwire developed.

1943

Howard Hughes designed bra for Jane Russell in The Outlaw.

1948

The Merry Widow for Dior’s new Look along with Lana Turner in The Merry Widow.

1950’s

The bigger the better, bullet bras with circular stitching, Marilyn Monroe.

1960’s

Brings the elastic strap and flexible underwire.

1970's

Then came LYCRA in the 1970's.

The Corset

What is it about corsets that so fascinates costume historians and fetishists alike?

For more than 500 years, women and occasionally men rigidly laced themselves up in whalebone or steel in order to be molded into some sort of physical ideal.

Consider the work of contemporary designers such as Gaultier and Lacroix, and it becomes apparent that this strange obsession continues to this day.

While there is no shortage of information on this fashion curiosity, Valerie Steele here emphasizes the aesthetic, social, and historical aspects.

As chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and the author of nearly 12 books on costume history, she is well qualified to tackle the subject and to attempt to answer "why."

The text is scholarly, yet lively and readable, and the numerous images drawn from a variety of sources such as trade cards, paintings, advertisements, book illustrations, and contemporary photos help illustrate her point.

Margarete Gross, Chicago P.L.
From Library Journal
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.