The first corsets, appeared in ancient times, were a tight leather headbands, intended to maintain the bust. Headbands worn either on the chest or under the breast.
During the Gothic replaces free draped came fashionable, tight body with clothes complicated tailoring, there were such items as tuck and zip. To correct figure flaws in cotton lining clothes inserted iron and wooden bars, are located between the mammary gland and dragged from the top to the lower abdomen. Corsets laced front, side and rear, the relaxation of lacing bars often fell. Afford such expensive, like a corset, could only women belonging to high society. In the men's locker room at the time the role of a corset is made pants and jacket (tunic). Soldiers belonging to the cavalry wore armor made of leather or metal, closed the trunk from the neck to the upper half of the thigh.
In the Renaissance male corset-steel shells made of openwork iron, and later appeared flexible fitting corsets with whalebone, covered with cloth. Women corsets separated from the dress and began to be made of leather with metal and wooden beams for stability and hardness. The first such corsets have tried Spaniard, modern hygienists rightly called such design instruments of torture. On the sides of the corset were inserted special hinges and the edges of circular holes located around the corset to the air, the contraction hit in the body and brought terrible suffering. In order to achieve the desired shape society ladies tied up her waist up to 20 inches in poluobhvate. Narrow corset making mischief throughout the body: when it is worn squeezes liver shifted stomach, kidney and stomach clenched, blood circulation. Such deformations often led to death.
In the eighteenth century came into vogue style 'Baroque' and corset has ceased to be an instrument of torture - it began to be made of a more flexible whalebone, and its rigidity limited to a rigid material. Lace-up front began to enter into a decorative ornament to the dress. Neglect corset was considered bad form even in the lower strata of society: if the daily homework could abandon it, when you exit to the street had to wear a corset.
"Wasp waist" remained in vogue until the early twentieth century - corsets tightened so much that the female silhouette was becoming like the letter S. The development of medicine and women's struggle for equality has led to the fact that throughout the nineteenth century war was waged against the wearing of corsets. One of the first suit against conventional spoke French writer George Sand. The reason that the corset, despite all the harm caused to health, did not go out of fashion, was simple: it was thought that it supports the internal organs and allows you to take outerwear silhouette in the spirit of the times.
In the early twentieth century corset continued to be used, keeping the beautiful curve of the back, but without causing severe bending at the waist. Thus disappeared the slope of the hips and reach more natural lines of the body. Was soon established direct corset, deformed breasts, supporting and slightly raising the stomach, but leaves the freedom and flexibility of the waist. Subsequently separated from direct corset top, became known as the bra and the bottom - belt. Later, there were byustoderzhateli straps, better build and maintain the shape of the breast. In the 40s there were corsets, correspond to the natural human anatomy, it marked the beginning of modern invention, a variety of designs and shapes, corsetry.