“There were health and safety concerns about keeping women in a pinching corset for weeks at a time.”
Huge changes are coming to the world of costume design, as period dramas are set to start banning the wearing of corsets on set.
According to reports, Netflix, BBC and ITV are planning on ditching the corset out of concerns for the health and safety of those who wear them.
A source told The Sun: “The corset is famously restrictive, and many actresses have complained to wardrobe departments about damage, both short-term and long, being done after a long 12 to 14 hour day wearing them on set.
“Essentially, there were health and safety concerns about keeping women in a pinching corset for weeks at a time.”
The source claimed that some actresses have reported “bruising and breathing problems” from wearing corsets.
Over the years, many actresses have spoken about the pain of wearing corsets.
Elle Fanning, for instance, who played Catherine the Great in Hulu’s The Great, said that wearing a corset “changed” her body.
“They do change your body, those corsets,” she said in an interview with Variety. “You’ve heard so many actresses talk about it, but your body does change, even your breathing pattern, especially saying those long speeches.”
Lily James, who wore a corset to play Cinderella in 2015, said that she experienced digestion issues while wearing a corset.
She told E! News: “When [the corset] was on we would be on continuous days so we wouldn’t stop for lunch or a lovely tea like this — you’d be sort of eating on the move. In that case, I couldn’t untie the corset. So if you ate food, it didn’t really digest properly and I’d be burping all afternoon in [Richard Madden]’s face, and it was just really sort of unpleasant. I’d have soup so that I could still eat but it wouldn’t get stuck.”
