Do you ever think about it?

When you think about it, a corseted bridal gown is the epitome of womanly age-old historically feminine garment. The bridal gown is a garment steeped in tradition, both emotionally and in its construction. Many techniques typical to a traditional wedding gown – corsetry, beadwork, lace appliqué, crinolines and hoop skirts, veiling – speak volumes to the passage of time, in terms of being techniques which once were widely represented within women’s fashion, but now generally within the Western context, speak quite exclusively to the context of a wedding ceremony.

The study of corsetry over the past thousand years is synonymous with the progression of the “fashionable body.” Throughout the centuries, the shape of the corset has ranged widely throughout various eras to accentuate the “idealized body” of the era, which would then support the general style of dresses at the time. Some eras promoted a more rounded hourglass figure, while others idealized a more sharply defined shape, etc.

The Wiederhoeft approach to corsetry is one that emphasizes shape. A celebratory and exaggeratory approach that has nothing to hide and everything to say. Imposition of self as Venus figurine.

Some other reasons why a corset is a unique and important detail!
1) Body euphoria
2) Memory
3) Queenly status

Are there any major differences between the construction of an exposed corset or those with hidden boning?

The way we do it at Wiederhoeft, there’s no major differences in fit, effect, and materials between corsets with exposed boning or hidden boning.

In the historical past, corsets are their own garment, truly a piece of underwear which was worn underneath a dress to provide a shaping foundation, and never seen by anyone except the wearer’s intimate family or friends. The corset was a sort of “secret”: since the lace-up back, boning channels, and stitching details were never seen, the shape that the corset exerted on the body could be “believed” to be simply a part of the wearer’s figure. The dress worn on top of the corset would hide all this construction.

In the present era at Wiederhoeft, our preference is to expose the boning channels, lacing, and general construction. It’s more of an aesthetic choice, as we love seeing the craftsmanship and shaping that goes into the piece. A celebration of past and present and the forces exerted upon the human body.

However sometimes the opposite effect is desirable. This provides an opportunity to focus on the textile or embroidery, creating a really clean effect. It’s somewhat cybernetic.

“Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin? From the seventeenth century till now, machines could be animated - given ghostly souls to make them speak or move or to account for their orderly development and mental capacities. Or organisms could be mechanized - reduced to body understood as a resource of mind. These machine/organism relationships are obsolete, unnecessary. For us, in imagination and in other practice, machines can be prosthetic devices, intimate components, friendly selves. We don’t need organic holism to give impermeable wholeness, the total woman and her feminist variants (mutants?).” - Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto