Few garments are as bound up with controversy and body politics as the corset. Case in point: the furore this week surrounding pictures the actor Anya Taylor-Joy posted on Instagram of herself wearing a corset, with an hourglass emoji caption.
The comments underneath gave a neat sample of the polarised thinking surrounding the much-maligned garment. “Can we not normalize starvation?” said one. “What a terrible, terrible thing to do to yourself or share with others,” said another. Others went in the other direction, from “There is such a misconception with corsets. Y’all relax,” to “Everyone is ‘body positivity!!!’ until it’s a skinny person in a corset,” or, pithily, just flame emojis.
