Tightlacing (also called corset training and waist training) is the practice of wearing a tightly-laced corset to achieve extreme modifications to the figure and posture and experience the sensations of a very tight corset. Those who practice tightlacing are called tightlacers. Some tightlacers call the corsets they wear training corsets.

Description

The most frequent aim of tightlacing is a slim waist. Depending on the silhouette desired, the shape of the ribcage may be altered as well. Wearing a corset can also change the bustline, by raising the breasts upwards and shaping them, flattening the stomach, and improving posture. However, these effects are only temporary and will be lost on removing the corset. Indeed, excessive corset wearing has been claimed to weaken certain muscles, making it more difficult to maintain posture without a corset.

Although some tightlacers do aim to get their waists as small as possible, others prefer to reduce their waists to a certain point and go no further (even though they could) as they consider that proportion and aesthetics are more important than achieving the smallest possible measurement. For example, male-to-female transvestites often seek to get a realistic feminine figure rather than a wasp waist.

History of tightlacing

Corsets were first worn during the 16th century, and remained a feature of fashionable dress until the French Revolution (1789). These corsets were mainly designed to turn the torso into the fashionable cylindrical shape, although they narrowed the waist as well. They had shoulder straps; they ended at the waist; they flattened the bust, and in so doing, pushed the breasts up. The emphasis of the corset was less on the smallness of the waist than on the contrast between the rigid flatness of the bodice front and the curving tops of the breasts peeking over the top of the corset. There are no records of tightlacers at this time.

The corset then went into eclipse. Fashion embraced the Empire silhouette: a Graeco-Roman style, with the scanty skirts gathered under the bosom and the waist de-emphasised, and dresses sewn from thin muslins rather than the heavy brocades and satins of aristocratic high fashion.

The reign of the Empire waist was short. In the 1830s, shoulders widened (with puffy gigot sleeves or flounces), skirts widened (layers of stiffened petticoats), and the waist narrowed and migrated towards its "natural" position. By the 1850s, exaggerated shoulders were out of fashion and waistlines were cinched at the natural waist, above a wide skirt. Fashion had achieved what we now tend to remember as the Victorian silhouette.

In the 1830s, the artificially inflated shoulders and skirts made the intervening waist look narrow, even with the corset laced only moderately. When the exaggerated shoulders disappeared, the waist itself had to be cinched tightly in order to achieve the same effect. It is in the 1840s and 1850s that tightlacing is first recorded. It was ordinary fashion taken to an extreme.

As it was accepted that a corseted waist was the ideal, it is hard to define tightlacing strictly, or to say what proportion of Victorian women practised it. We cannot take today's waist measurements as a guide, since:

• Women's bodies have increased in size since the nineteenth century, so waist measurements that seem small today might not have been considered so by Victorians.

• As corset wearing was the norm in the nineteenth century, it is likely that women tolerated proportionally greater reductions as a matter of course, without thinking of themselves as tightlacers.

We can guess that young and fashionable women were most likely to tightlace, especially for balls, fashionable gatherings, and like occasions for display. Older, poorer, and primmer women would have laced moderately
just enough to be decent.

The Victorian and Edwardian corset differed from earlier corsets in numerous ways. The corset no longer ended at the waist, but flared out and ended several inches below the waist. The corset was exaggeratedly curvaceous rather than cylindrical. It was also much sturdier in construction, thanks to improvements in technology. Spiral steel stays curved with the figure, rather than dictating a cylindrical silhouette. While many corsets were still sewn by hand to the wearer's measurements, there was also a thriving market in cheaper mass-produced corsets.

In the late years of the Victorian era, medical reports and rumors claimed that tightlacing was fatally detrimental to health (see Victorian dress reform). Women who suffered to achieve small waists were also condemned for their vanity and excoriated from the pulpit as slaves to fashion. It was frequently claimed that too small a waist was actually ugly, rather than beautiful. Dress reformers exhorted women to abandon the tyranny of stays and free their waists for work and healthy exercise.

Despite the efforts of dress reformers to eliminate the corset, and despite medical and clerical warnings, women persisted in tightlacing as long as it was fashionable. In the early 1900s, the small corseted waist began to fall out of fashion. The feminist and dress reform movements had made practical clothing acceptable for work or exercise. The rise of the Artistic dress movement made loose clothing and the natural waist fashionable even for evening wear. Couturiers like Fortuny and Poiret designed exotic, alluring costumes in pleated or draped silks, calculated to reveal slim, youthful bodies. If one didn't have such a body, new undergarments, the brassiere and the girdle, promised to give the illusion of one.

Corsets were no longer fashionable, but some men still felt that they were sexy. Corsets entered the underworld of the fetish, along with items such as extreme high heels, bondage gear, and black vinyl catsuits.

In the 1980s and 1990s, fetish wear became a fashion trend and corsets made something of a recovery. They are often worn as top garments rather than underwear. However, most corset wearers own a bustier or two for evening wear; they do not tightlace. Historical re-enactors also wear corsets, but few tightlace.

Tightlacing today

Modern tightlacing is a minority interest, often associated with fetishistic interest in the corset and BDSM. The majority of tightlacers are women, although some men do tightlace
corsetier Mr Pearl has a nineteen-inch waist.

Tightlacers typically wear a corset for at least 12 hours a day, every day, when they are most active, although some tightlacers wear corsets for up to 23 hours a day, taking the corset off only in order to bathe.

Tightlacers usually have a partner, called a trainer, to help and support them. However, it is possible (although very difficult) for somebody to tightlace without a partner. (Tightlacers are often
but not necessarily
in a sexual and/or loving relationship with their trainer.)

A partner might take on any of the following tasks:

• help the tightlacer put on and take off the corset, especially tightening the laces
• help him or her follow through with the training schedule
• monitor the tightlacer's health
• monitor body changes and keep a log