Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Beyonce and a score of other celebrities in current pop culture have repeatedly brought the corset "out from under" and into the limelight over the past couple of decades. Whether a leather corset for an erotic spectacle on stage, a beaded one for the Red Carpet or lacy and casual for lunch with friends, the image harkens back, ever so subtly, to one of the first powerful ladies to don a corset, Queen Elizabeth I of England. That's not to imply of course that Queen Elizabeth's corsets were such blatant fashion statements as these women's, but underneath it all, was there more being said than meets the eye? And it may not have been any of these celebrities' intention to associate herself with powerful women of eras past necessarily, but it's not a far stretch to say that this fashion statement speaks volumes and brings with it to its wearers a powerful history of female expression that spans centuries.
For a simple item of clothing, corsets have stirred many opinions as to their function and the role they play in the female wardrobe. In eras past, as a required fashion staple, corsets were sometimes considered to be the epitome of conservative male oppression of women with their restrictive binding. In current times however, fashion designers are less likely to consider corsets as a figment of male domination and instead covet them as a timeless fascination with shaping the female body and today's wearers can surely be considered to be clearly exhibiting the ultimate form of confidence and feminine expression. Still, others who couldn't care less about a corset's cultural implications or their ability to shape a body consider them to be ideal under-garments supporting the back in a comfortable way-a very practical fashion in this sense. Of course, no fashion would be worth its weight without a little controversy and on this point, corsets have delivered.
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