Accession numberRMG-5558MeasurementsH340 x W360mmHistoryPrior to the First World War, corsets were an essential part of women’s underwear. They performed the role of supporting the breasts and shaping the waist to compliment the fashionable silhouette of the time. Some women took the idea of tight lacing to the limit. The ‘wasp waist’ look of the 1860s was the extreme stereotype of the fainting woman in too-tight steel or whale-boned corsets.