I recently fell in love and purchased this charming little rubber stamp image of the a corset to add to my vast collection of stamps. I have been fascinated recently with the recent popularity of corset styles in the some of the new steampunk, burlesque, and fusion bellydance costuming, as well as mainstream fashion. In one way, in struck me as slightly ironic that we've taken to wearing what I'd always previously believed to be a symbol of female repression and turned it into an empowering image of female beauty. In reality, the requirement to wear a tight corset each day of a woman's life caused fainting and in extreme cases led to bone structure deformities. Imagine having to wake up each day and lace something so tight around your mid-section so tight that you could barely breath all day, everyday. No thank you! Corsets have been around for some time as an undergarment and dribbled out of popularity with the invention of fabrics such as lycra (hello, Spanx!), and the need to use our metal more wisely (war). So in a way, we are still wearing forms of corsets in our underclothes every time we wear a push-up bra, tummy control girdle, or control top pantyhose. Now that we are safely away from the era of required tight corset wearing, we are free to wear these undergarments on the outside, dress them up with all manner of silk and in every color and style you can imagine. So I will continue to make new designs with my fun corset stamp and celebrate the fact that I can wear a fun, pretty corset, if I want to...because let's face it, they do look pretty awesome.
