Corset Lowdown

Corsets have been idolized by both women and men for a long time - 100's of years. The types of shapes and construction techniques have changed over time. and so have the materials used. In order to reproduce the correct shapes, you should have an understanding of the items and materials you can select from.

Using Corsets to Shape the Body

The oldest corsets are typically those with moderate amounts of reshaping. The breast flesh looks to be extremely compressed and their appearance reshaped. To develop this silhouette you have to work against the curves and shape of of a woman's body.

Busks, Boning and Corset Construction

A corset of high quality depends on two main factors: a) the type and material used in the boning, and b) how tight you can snug up the lacing. To ensure comfortable wear you are only able to tighten the laces so much, you should rely on the boning for providing the rest of the support.

Spring steel boning is nylon-coated steel that is white in color and is built in a wide variety of lengths, widths, and thicknesses. When you are deciding on the type of steel boning for the corset best suited to you the thickness gives way to the width in importance. When the proper thickness of steel boning is selected it is quite flexible and it is extremely hard to bend.

You are able to also find busks that open and are mainly used on the front of corsets to enable you to put on your corset without assistance. The earliest busks were invented around 1860 and began with the inclusion of a simple busk, the more detailed spoon busk was created ten years later. All of these corsets can be found in either our corset superstore or our corset auctions.