corsets wholesale

When the topic of waist training comes up, one of the most common point of confusion is what a waist trainer actually is, i.e.what are people using to ‘train their waist.’ Since Kim Kardashian posted photos of herself in a latex cincher, companies have cropped up everywhere selling latex garments (or fajas) and the terminology has become quite blurred.

The latex garments, referred to as ‘cinchers’ (a term which has an entirely different meaning within the corset community), are also being referred to as ‘corsets’, which causes confusion. The term ‘corset’ is not only being used by companies who sell these garments, but also in newspaper and media reviews. (For anybody who saw the Dr. Oz review, this was a cincher and not a corset!) And of course the topic of that review is need for a whole other article…

A corset by definition is never made from stretchy material. It fastens at the front with a steel busk, and laces up at the back. It will have a defined shape, and if it is an hourglass corset will cinch mostly at the waistline. Contrary to popular belief, a well fitted, quality corset is very comfortable. This is because the compression is in specific areas (as opposed to a cincher which applies pressure to the entire midsection at the same rate) and the laces allow the user to adjust to comfort.

What should you consider before deciding on a corset or cincher?

1) Do you want to exercise in the product?

If you’re looking for a product you can wear during cardio and to burn a little fat off the tummy (and possibly temporary water weight) then a cincher may be of benefit. The one thing to be cautious of is the amount of compression on your lungs, as you should have full lung capacity for any form of cardiovascular exercise. This is another reason why we favor corsets to cinchers – with a corset you wear during day to day activity but never during exercise. Additionally, the compression is focused at the waistline, and you can adjust the lacing near your ribs to breathe comfortably.

2) Are you looking to change the shape of your midsection, or simply burn fat in your natural shape?

A cincher may help you lose a few inches but cannot change the shape of your body. A corset, on the other hand, can actually change the morphology of the fat and muscle in the area and redefine your waistline in an hourglass shape. This is particularly useful for those who find that no matter what they do they cannot lose weight around the middle.

3) What is your end goal and how much do you want to spend?

While a corset may seem like a huge investment to some, it will actually cost you less in the end. A large percentage of our customers come to us when they realize how uncomfortable cinchers are. But even if you’re happy with a cincher, it can only take you so far: Typically you can only lose around an inch before your cincher is stretched out and no longer fits snugly. With a corset you can lose 6-8 inches with the same corset if it’s sized for waist training. As you get smaller, you lace tighter. So the cincher that cost $50, after multiple sizes now has you investing between $200-300

So how do you know if you’re really purchasing a cincher?

1. Corsets are fitted based on measurements. If a company is not asking you for your measurements and instead is simply sizing their product by S, M, L etc., this is a cincher

2. The item hooks in the front, or does not have any laces in the back. The fastening system for a cincher looks like the hooks on a bra closure

3. The material is stretchy

Be wary of advertisements which claim that a latex cincher is ‘steel boned’. If this is true you will be very uncomfortable in the garment, as the boning cannot be properly reinforced in such a material. Reinforced boning channels in a corset keep the boning where it should be, which means there is no poking or prodding!

The one time we would recommend a product other than a corset would be immediately post- pregnancy when you can use a belly binder to wrap your belly. This should be worn for the first 4-6 weeks after pregnancy, or until your doctor gives you clearance to start waist training with a corset.

Happy Waist Training all!!

If you start looking on the Internet for info about waist training, you’re going to find that a lot of people confuse what waist training actually is. For the record, it is NOT about wearing your Spanx to the gym in the hopes that your shaping undergarments will help you lose weight. That is a whole different enchilada (or three – there’s a reason we go to the gym, after all…mmm, enchiladas).

In addition, people who don’t actually do waist training often confuse terms like waist training and tight lacing (not to mention waist taming, but that’s a topic for another day). You might find yourself shaking your fist and crying to the heavens, “Dear God! Why can’t anyone explain this to me?”

Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but the good news is, you’ve come to the right place! Those of us who love corsetry and are totally down with REAL waist training are here to give you the skinny (pun intended!) on waist training vs tight lacing. Strap in, lace up, and get ready to expand your mind – and trim your waist.

What is Waist Training?
Waist training is the slow and steady process of diminishing the size of your waist using steel-boned corsets. Did I mention the process is slow and steady? It’s slow. It also requires that you work your way up to wearing a fitted corset all day, every day. Over time, you’ll gradually tighten the corset to actually make your waistline smaller. Then you’ll upgrade to a smaller corset to continue.

What is the point? To achieve an effect that lasts even after the corset is removed. Waist training is a slow, safe process designed to create and enhance a feminine, hourglass silhouette without causing undue discomfort or physical harm in the process.

What is Tight Lacing?
Tight lacing is something altogether different, although it may seem very similar. Tight lacing involves pulling corsetry lacing as tight as possible to affect an immediate and dramatic reduction in waist size, often defined as four or more inches smaller. The goal is to create an exaggerated hourglass shape by squeezing the waistline and boosting the bosom. Many consider the practice to be somewhat antiquated and less safe than waist training.

Why Do People Confuse These Totally Different Activities?
We’re not sure, but it’s probably related to the fact that they both involve corsets, which have been the wardrobe equivalent of Alan Rickman. He was great once upon a time in your favorite holiday movie, “Die Hard” back in ’88, then all but fell off the radar for years before becoming hugely popular as the dark-arts-loving death eater in the “Harry Potter” franchise (sniffle…RIP Snape). He was there all along, but nobody knew where.

The same with the corset. Although it was a staple of Victorian-era fashion, it fell out of favor when the fun-loving flappers decided it was too confining for their rabble-rousing ways. Okay, that’s a lot of hyphenated words. The point is that many women are only just discovering the joys of corsetry, including the art of waist training, so it’s only natural for some confusion to abound.

Do you have additional questions about the differences between waist training and tight lacing? Contact us – we’d love to help! If you’d like to stay up-to-date with weekly blog posts, waist training tips, and the chance to win one of our monthly corset giveaways, like us on Facebook & subscribe to our mailing list today!

In 1908, a doctor used X-rays to highlight the damaging effects of tight corsets on a woman’s body.

For centuries, boned bodices formed part of a lady’s everyday wardrobe, but it wasn’t until the invention and implementation of the metal eyelet — the holes through which the laces were threaded — in the 1820s and 30s that something called tight lacing came into effect.

This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: pulling and tying the laces of a corset tight to give the wearer a desired shape; generally along the lines of an hourglass, with a tightly pulled-in waist.

This caused, of course, the familiar fainting to which fashionable young ladies were prone; they were often laced so tightly that they could barely breathe; to help her recover, those around her would loosen her stays (the laces), allowing air to flood back into her constricted lungs.

This, however, was merely the most obvious of the health problems associated with tight lacing, and the garment was the subject of hot debate between those who believed the corset beneficial (mostly the women who actually wore corsets), and those who believed it injurious to the health of the wearer. Indeed, The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest medical journals, published two articles on the subject — one on June 14, 1890, entitled Death From Tight Lacing and the second on January 16, 1892, called Effects of Tight Lacing.

Neither was particularly approving of the practice. The former stated that its consequences “cannot be but hurtful.” It went on, “the veriest novice in anatomy understands how by this process almost every important organ is subjected to cramping pressure, its functions interfered with, and its relations to other structures so altered as to render it, even if it were itself competent, a positive source of danger to them. ”

Indeed, the medical community fairly roundly condemned tight lacing. Surgeon William Henry Flower included it as a deforming fashion in his book Fashion in Deformity, an 85-page volume that included skull-shaping, foot-binding and tooth-filing among its subjects, along with an illustration of its effect on the rib cage. Tight lacing over a long period of time does cause the size of the wearer’s waist to shrink as the internal structure of the body shifts to accommodate the constriction.

The effect of tight restriction on the lungs was particularly troubling; the lower lobes of the lungs are prevented from expanded fully when taking a breath, resulting in extra strain. This exacerbated lung conditions such as tuberculosis and pneumonia, which effect the lower lungs first, making the condition much more serious — and both illnesses were much more prevalent before the invention of vaccines in the 20th century.

The other serious problem caused by tight lacing over an extended period of time is atrophy of the back muscles and pectoral muscles, as the corset’s boning does the work of keeping the wearer’s back straight — which, in turn, leads to greater reliance on the corset.

Overall, there seems to be little direct evidence that tight lacing had permanent effects on the wearer. Nevertheless, the restriction of the organs — which could cause poor digestion, poor breathing and poor function otherwise while wearing a tightly laced corset — was a cause for concern for some doctors.

One such was Ludovic O’Followell, a French doctor who in 1905 and 1908 published books on the effects of the corset on female health. O’Followell, however, had something that all the previous arguments and illustrations did not: he used a brand new technology to bolster his arguments.

X-ray had been discovered in just 1895 — a breakthrough that netted Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen the very first Nobel Prize in Physics. The unknown radiation, he noticed, passed through human tissue, but not human bone; it was in diagnostic use just a year later in 1896.

It was this that O’Followell used to illustrate the effects of tight lacing on the ribcage, in a series of striking images included in a paper entitled Le Corset. In it, he argued that the corset not only affected a woman’s physical health, but also her behaviour. He cites novelist Arabella Kenealy, who in 1904 penned an article about the ill effects of the corset — including an account of a strange and possibly nonexistent experiment involving putting corsets on monkeys — noting that she blamed the corset for “bad language.”

However, although the corset was to fall out of fashion in the 1920s, when flapper dresses introduced a more androgynous shape in rebellious response to tight lacing, O’Followell’s intention was not to abolish the corset altogether; instead, he hoped merely to encourage the development of a more healthy and comfortable corset.

You can find the full text of O’Followell’s treatise here (translated from the French), and the full collection of illustrations and photographs here (contains some images that are NSFW).

Recently, many friends have to attend to the wedding, and in this kind of moment, what kind of dress is very important to every woman who loves pretty and fashion. Most of people think that wearing the wedding dress just like the usual time, women dress the long dresses as usual time. But according to the report, before wearing the wedding dress, you must wear a corset. A body control shapewear can make you have a slim body to show your sexy body and slim when you wearing a wedding dress.

Adding a corset back helps you fit into your wedding dress perfectly and saves you valuable money. Perhaps you’ve decided to wear your mother’s dress or buy one off the rack, which you deem perfect for your wedding. The dress fits you well for the most part, but it just wouldn’t zip all the way up the back. Creating a corset back, therefore, is a good, inexpensive solution. A corset back also complements most wedding dress styles and body types.

Generally speaking, corset bodices are popular features in many dresses and especially so for bridal gowns. They emphasize the waist and bust, flatter the bride and give a stunning effect for the gown’s skirt. Wedding dresses with corset bodices come in one or two pieces. A lace-up fastening at the back of the bodice adds beautiful detail and provides an adjustment for size.

A lace intimate control panties can shape your body into a prefect size to wear the wedding. Of course, you are the most beautiful pride bride with this elegant corset. And these two corsets’ color are white and black and white, you will never worry about it is bot match your beautiful white wedding dress. If you want to have a prefect wedding, remember to notice your slim body!

It was the Oxford Conference of Corsetry just over a week ago, and in its run-up I spent most of my time getting pretty obsessive about corsets. I’ve been neglecting other areas of lingerie to dedicate my time to crafting these exquisite, waist-altering garments. Consequently, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the significance of the corset. As a lingerie designer, corsets to me have always existed in their own category outside the rest of lingerie. Generally speaking, I consider them to be their own category of clothing, and more of a piece of outerwear than exclusively underwear.

For the majority of their history, corsets have been almost exclusively an undergarment. It was during their heyday in the Victorian and Edwardian eras that they made the transformation from a purely functional pieces of clothing to a beautiful pieces of lingerie. The introduction of luxurious silk fabrics and dainty lace trims meant many corsets became elegant components of trousseaus or decadent boudoir accompaniments, a new incarnation for these previously staid garments. Yet in the latter half of the 20th century, heavy foundation wear fell almost entirely out of favour. It wasn’t until around the 1980s that corsets saw a major resurgence (and one that we can largely attribute to Jean Paul Gaultier’s corseted costumes for Madonna); corsets stopped solely being hidden under clothing.

There’s no doubt that corsets have become somewhat of a staple for many modern lingerie brands; however, for many of these labels, it can certainly be debated whether or not these garments actually count as ‘proper’ corsets. Many of these pieces are lightly boned with plastic and without much curve cut into the patterns: they will not offer any real form or shaping and cannot really be referred to as foundation wear. Arguably in these instances, the difference between corsets and basques and bustiers has become somewhat blurred.

It’s very rare to see actual shapely corsets being sold alongside lingerie (with the exception of certain vintage-inspired brands such as What Katie Did and Kiss Me Deadly). Curvy corsets and ‘waist-training’ have certainly seen a resurgence in recent years, though there’s certainly been a shift in the number of retailers that actually market these corsets as pieces of underwear.

Many corsets are now being designed exclusively as outerwear pieces, whether these be additional accessories to casual wear (as brands like Orchard Corset and other lower-priced OTR labels seem to target) or evening and bridal wear. These pieces still often give a nod to lingerie though: many OTR styles include loops for suspender attachments as standard. In addition to this, it must be noted that the boundaries between lingerie and outerwear are becoming more and more blurred, corsets non-withstanding: consider the number of lingerie brands that create bras with extravagant necklines and harness attachments.

Of course there will always be corsets that are created specifically as lingerie, whether that be historical reproductions or modern interpretations of girdles. Nevertheless, the area of corsetry that most interests me and that I aspire to as a designer most is one that will never remain in the world of lingerie: couture. Whether it be Mr Pearl’s impeccable creations on the Parisian catwalks or Sparklewren’s lace and Swarovski encrusted delights, these are pieces that should be criminal to cover up with clothing. It’s the side of the industry that is totally uncommercial that interests me most: the area where creativity can take wing most. Costings and mass production aren’t considerations for pieces like these; I suspect this is where my personal disconnect between corsets and lingerie originates.

There’s no ‘correct’ answer for corsetry’s position in the lingerie world. A number of prominent figures in the corsetry community were asked for their thoughts on the matter. The variety of opinion certainly offers some food for thought! (Special thank you to Cathy Hay for asking Mr Pearl’s thoughts on the matter!)

Mr Pearl: Corsets are objects in their own right, whether lingerie or showpiece. They’re connected to shoes, hat and gloves…. They exist in their own world. They are not fashion, they are beyond fashion. They can be in or out of fashion. Once they were required but that time will never return…. But imagine the waists you’d see! Lingerie is something very private, to be shared in private. Corsetry should be shared wherever possible.

Shares of L Brands Inc tumbled to a three-year low on Thursday, a day after the retailer said it expected sluggish demand for Victoria’s Secret lingerie to force its biggest brand’s steepest ever monthly decline in comparable sales.
Victoria’s Secret, the long-time lingerie market leader, has been struggling to boost sales amid changing trends such as the emergence of bralettes, which are cheaper and easier to size and buy online than regular bras.

L Brands, which recently exited some product categories, including Victoria’s Secret’s swim and apparel business, said on Wednesday it expected February comparable sales at its biggest brand to fall by about 20 percent. Comparable sales fell 10 percent in January.
Victoria’s Secret last reported a double-digit decline in comparable sales during the 2007-09 financial crisis, but even then, the decline did not surpass 15 percent.

L Brands, whose shares slumped as much as 17.5 percent on Thursday, attributed about half of its overall net sales last year to Victoria’s Secret.

There’s no question that bralettes have changed the intimates selling experience, removing barriers to entry that Victoria’s Secret has held and allowing other brands to start chipping away at share, Instinet analyst Simeon Siegel told Reuters.
“On top of that, even though Victoria’s Secret is selling bralettes – they’re selling a nice amount of units – their problem is bralettes are lower priced ,” Siegel added.

American Eagle Outfitters Inc’s down-to-earth and cheaper Aerie was one of the first lingerie brands to hop onto the bralette bandwagon.
Aerie, one of several brands that is stealing millennial attention from Victoria’s Secret, has also gained traction through marketing campaigns targeted at the every-woman, with ads featuring models of all shapes and sizes who often aren’t air-brushed.
This contrasts starkly with high-fashion, picture-perfect Victoria’s Secret “Angels”.

“Victoria’s Secret is still a little fake and plastic … I think they have an image problem and if you look at the competition out there and you look at the messaging, what resonates right now is not the Victoria’s Secret message,” said Gabriella Santaniello, analyst and founder at A-Line Partners.
“They are sending mixed messages to the consumer and that conveys a lack of authenticity and I think the customer knows that and obviously they’re speaking with their wallets.”

Victoria’s Secret, which has been promoted by a string of celebrity models such as Gisele Bundchen and Adriana Lima, isn’t the only struggling high-end lingerie chain. Troubled upmarket lingerie chain Agent Provocateur has also been hit by the luxury spending slowdown.