The Goddess of Haute Couture

One of my most valued possessions is Valerie Steele's book The Corset.

Here, Valerie Steele tells us all about the history of the corset and what it means in culture. In the book Bound to Please, another valued tome on my library shelf, Leigh Summers tells us about how women designers and women entrepreneurs created and produced corsets in the 19th century. Jean Fouquet painted the Virgin Mary in a corset.

Constricting though it was, and damaging to health, the corset allowed Victorian women to express their sexuality and frame their beauty, in an era which tried to repress female sexuality.

The corset continues to fascinate us today, in the work of many designers, most notably Jean Paul Gaultier's.

I think that Jean Paul Gaultier is, together with Karl Lagerfeld, among those people without whom the world would be less beautiful, less creative -- less fun.

Praise be to the Goddess of Haute Couture!