There was no shortage of celebrities reviving archival fashion in 2019. We saw glimmering vintage Versace dresses on Kim Kardashian West, rare Jean-Paul Gaultier cyber dot looks on Charli XCX, and Cardi B in a series of showstopping, sculptural Thierry Mugler creations. But there was one item in particular that never stopped infiltrating our feeds: Vivenne Westwood corsets. The amount of women wearing the vintage body-cinching pieces numbered in the dozens, and even marked a new chapter for some celebrities’ style journeys. Just take Kourtney Kardashian: back in February, the eldest Kardashian sister wore a piece from king-of-corsets dealer Johnny Valencia of Pechuga Vintage; namely, a corset featuring a black lace asymmetrical piece from Vivienne Westwood Gold Label. Suddenly, Kardashian looked both “snatched,” and as if she—or rather, her stylist—had accrued a wealth of knowledge about the famed Brit designer’s deep cuts.
Other fans of Westwood’s corsets this past year include Barbie Ferreria, Miley Cyrus, Megan Thee Stallion, and Alexa Demie, all of whom wore an incarnation from Valencia’s Pechuga Vintage. “I decided to introduce a new generation of collectors to the corset, because that was what Vivienne Westwood was best known for in the late ’80s and for a decade after,” he writes to Vogue. It had an impact: The most unmistakable Westwood corset cameos were the most decorative of the designer’s creations. One style that proved especially popular with this younger generation was the waist-whittling numbers featuring passion-soaked paintings by 18th-century artist Francis Boucher, like the image of Daphnis and Chloe that hails from the Vivienne Westwood Fall 1990 collection, and currently lives in the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, or the corset that shows the lip-locking close-up of Hercules and Omphale from the Fall 1993 collection.
The covetable pieces, which sell online for thousands of dollars, have been seen on a slew of women with vastly different personal styles. In her full signature saucy baroque style, FKA Twigs, who has her own collection of Westwood corsets, wore one to the Sundance Film Festival back in February; meanwhile, Bella Hadid strutted out in early September wearing the Hercules and Omphale incarnation with a boyish pair of low-slung pants. Rowan Blanchard even wore one with a cow-print cowboy hat in a sun-drenched Instagram back in September.
So, why the corset? The piece, once constrictive with boning in order to cinch the waist, mangling the organs of many Victorian women, can feel out of place in a time when we are taking strides forward for female empowerment. But, of course, Westwood’s corsets aren’t technically made from the same body-crunching materials from days of yore, and given they are the product of Westwood’s offbeat creative vision, they have a welcome jolt of punk to them. Who can forget the regrammed and regrammed photo of two models kissing backstage at a Westwood show, their cleavage spilling out and one with a choker pearl necklace, both wearing the Boucher corsets? Westwood’s corset is not only an unmistakable statement piece—it’s also subversively erotic.
Actually sourcing a Westwood corset in 2019 is an altogether trickier affair: finding one is a little like unearthing fashion’s very own Dead Sea Scroll. But their impact proved so strong that the nipped silhouette began showing up everywhere, even if it wasn’t specifically Westwood’s design. Westwood herself sent out two corsets in her Fall 2019 show; one with a floral print and the other with a paint splatter graphic. “What is greater proof of its comeback than a reissue of the piece in 2019 by the Dame herself?” asks Valencia. Truly nothing. Time to zip up, and wriggle in.
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