I can still remember the day when I first saw a corselet. It was in a shop in the town where I grew up and a friend's mother took us in there so that she could collect one. The shop was located down an alleyway and their window display featured mannequins wearing the restrictive underwear or foundation garments as they are more commonly known. This was the 1980's and fashion trends had moved away from this restrictive and some might say uncomfortable underwear, but to me I had a moment where I wondered what it would be like to be cocooned inside one of these satin items and feel the wiring, boning and zips pressing against me. As a young adult woman I had a moment where I saw something I thought looked wonderful.
The shop was incredibly old-fashioned back then with women dressed in identical clothing serving and stock displayed in glass counters. I remember my friend's mother being handed her purchase in a large brown paper bag at a time when most shops had switched to plastic and taking advantage of the opportunity to market themselves.
I forgot about the experience and never thought about it again until a year ago. I had moved away from home after university and my parents moved too. They both died within a year of each other and I found out then that they still used the solicitors in the town where we lived. I was invited to visit the solicitor to sort out the final details of the estate and so one morning I set off to revisit the past. I was in quite a state at the time as losing both parents in a short space of time and I was currently going through a divorce.