Did you know that corsets began to be used in the Western world regularly in the 1500s (where they were called “whalebone bodies” see Corsets in Context).When I began to do my research into why Miranda (of The Fairy Tale Bride) would prefer not to wear her stays, I thought of a corset as something from Gone With the Wind, meant to cinch in the waist.

Contrary to my then-uninformed opinion, I discovered that corsets (or stays as they were often called) changed as fashion changed. Just like mo...