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Tightlacing (also called corset training) is the practice of wearing an increasingly tightly laced corset to achieve cosmetic modifications to the figure and posture or to experience the sensation of bodily restriction. The process originates in mid-19th century Europe and was highly controversial. At the peak of the prevalence of tightlacing, there was much public backlash both from medical doctors and dress reformers, and it was often ridiculed as vain by the general public. Due to a combination of evolving fashion trends, social change regarding the roles of women, and material shortages brought on by World War I and II, tightlacing, and corsets in general, fell out of favor entirely by the early 20th century.
Additionally, corsets were among the first garments to be mass-manufactured via assembly line. This increased the accessibility of high-quality corsets and meant that middle- and lower-class women could purchase corsets where before they may have worn corded "jumps". Dress historian David Kunzle maintains that tightlacing was largely the domain of middle to lower middle class women hoping to increase their station in life; he estimates that the average corseted waist size of the 1880s was approximately , with an uncorseted waist size of about .
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. Dress reformers exhorted women to abandon the tyranny of stays and free their waists for work and healthy exercise, with an emphasis on the negative consequences to one's reproductive system.
Despite the efforts of dress reformers to eliminate the corset, and despite medical and clerical warnings, women persisted in tightlacing, although a number of corsets were created that purported to alleviate effects on the wearers' bodies. By the 1910s and 20s, the corset had begun to fall out of fashion entirely, driven by both cultural and practical changes. The need for steel during World War I and World War II made corsets a luxury rather than a necessity. At the same time, first-wave feminism, the Artistic Dress movement, and the flapper subculture popularized less exaggerated silhouettes, and elasticated girdles and brassieres began to rise in popularity to create a less rigidly shaped figure. Although the structured, corseted wasp-waist made a resurgence after World War II in the form of the New Look, there was soon backlash with hippie culture; meanwhile, the rise of popular fitness culture meant that diet, liposuction, and exercise became the preferred methods of achieving a thin waist. Corsets were no longer fashionable, but they entered the underworld of the Sexual fetishism, along with items such as bondage gear and vinyl , as well as alternative and runway fashions, as seen in the work of Vivienne Westwood or in the goth subculture. They are often worn as top garments rather than underwear. Historical reenactors often wear corsets, but few tightlace.
Although there was no standardized system of corset training, some contemporary accounts give us an idea of what this training period was like. Corsets were begun at whatever age one's mother or female guardian felt was appropriate, which could be as young as seven or as old as 18 or 19. "Corsets and Such, A Devotee of the Corset" Boston Globe (8 January 1888)
Corset makers themselves could also give a woman a regimen of increasingly smaller corsets: "Women Must All Tighten Up" Chicago Daily Tribune (29 December 1907)A common practice was to sleep with corsets still on, to prevent the waist from expanding again at night. To prevent girls from loosening or cutting the laces at night, different strategies were employed, such as using corporal punishment, "Women's Kingdom" Toronto Daily Mail (7 April 1883) p. 5 tying an unusual knot that could not be replicated, fastening a padlock chain around the waist, or even, in one case, tying the child's hands behind her back. However, some felt this method cruel and unnecessary, recommending a looser corset for nighttime or foregoing the nighttime corset completely.
In 1895, The West Australian published an account purporting to be from the early 1860s, the diary of a student at an all-girls boarding school which described how their school madams trained girls to achieve waists ranging from to at a rate of a quarter-inch (.6 cm) per month. The narrator reports a reduction from to , and a subsequent interview with a corsetmaking firm corroborated that such sizes were not unusual during that period.
Another account from a "fashionable school in London" fondly recalls the practice as a source of rivalry and pride among schoolgirls in her youth, reporting a reduction of about one inch per month, ultimately achieving a waist of from her original .Waugh, Norah. Corsets and Crinolines New York: Theater Arts Books, 1954, p. 141 Although most of these accounts describe adolescent girls, there are some sources which suggest that this process can take place at older ages, albeit with more difficulty. Many records of older women who tightlaced were induced to do so by their husbands, such as in the case of Ethel Granger, and had an element of sexual fetishism. The majority of people taking part in tightlacing were likely teenagers or young adults; the smallest waist sizes on record should be contextualized as such.
Tightlacing appears to have been a source of great pride and at times pleasure for many practitioners. However, there were also many who protested or were totally unable to achieve significant reductions. In 1896, a fashion house employee reported that, of the shop girls who undertook the training process to achieve the desired waist size of , "out of every 100 girls she found three could not lace at all, six laced with difficulty, eight eventually gave up, ten endured the bondage, seventy really enjoyed it, and three laced excessively." Dress historian David Kunzle theorized that some enthusiastic fans of tightlacing may have experienced sexual pleasure when tightlacing, or by rubbing against the front of the corset, which contributed to the moral outrage against the practice. Although such issues could not be discussed openly, many testimonials report feeling a pleasant numb or tingling sensation when tightlacing. "The Proof of the Pudding" Toronto Daily Mail (5 May 1883) p. 5
Along with activists, many doctors spoke out against the practice. One Doctor Lewis writes in an 1882 edition of The North American Review:
This likely alluded to problems with the reproductive organs experienced by women who wore corsets, and demonstrates the difficulties of explaining this issue due to sexual taboos.
This pushback led to a number of developments in the design of the corset. Because of the public health outcry surrounding corsets and tightlacing, some doctors took it upon themselves to become Corsetiere. Many doctors helped to fit their patients with corsets to avoid the dangers of ill-fitting corsets, and some doctors even designed corsets themselves. Roxey Ann Caplin became a widely renowned corset maker, enlisting the help of her husband, a physician, to create corsets which she purported to be more respectful of human anatomy. Health corsets and "rational corsets" became popular alternatives to the boned corset. They included features such as wool lining, watch springs as boning, elastic paneling, and other features purported to be less detrimental to one's health. The practice of training girls to tightlace at an early age seems to have completely fallen out of favor by the early 20th century, seen as a curiosity of a more foolish time. "Wasp Waist Contests" Amador Ledger (21 July 1911)
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