Lacing gaps have always been a hot topic in the corset community, and for good reason – it’s a very easy way to “diagnose” the fit of a corset. When my followers write to ask what might be wrong with the fit of their corset, most are surprised that I’m more interested in how the back of their corset is fitting, rather than the front.
More than 10 years ago I wrote a series of articles going over different lacing gap shapes and sizes (1) (2), but the topic that tends to get the most debate is the acceptable width of a parallel lacing gap. This previous article concludes that a lacing gap of between 1-3 inches in width tend to be almost universally acceptable and seen as both aesthetic and comfortable, but a width of 10% of your natural waist is also a good gauge – so if your natural waist is 50 inches, it’s acceptable to have a lacing gap of 5 inches in the back of your corset. (This becomes important below.)
I would like to put forth the idea that the width of your lacing gap can also be a predictor of your success.*
Signs your corset might be too small
As a quick recap: if your corset is giving you a parallel lacing gap, then the proportions are right for your body – but if the width of that parallel lacing gap is more than, say, 15-20% of your natural waist (after it’s been snugly cinched down), the corset may very well be too small in size for you.
(As an example, what this could look like is a 6″ wide gap if your natural waist is 30 inches.)
When a lacing gap is too wide, the fit tends to get a little funky. This is regardless of the brand, because it’s a physics issue, not a construction / brand specific issue.
More important than the aesthetic bug of a too-wide lacing gap is how it affects your comfort. The back of the corset will feel tight – sometimes causing “muffin” (flesh spillover) at the top edge of the corset by the shoulder blades. One of the worse-case scenarios can even be a sciatica-like pain in your bum or back of your hip, if the corset presses awkwardly on your piriformis muscle.
Every good quality corset has flat steels in the back edges to support the lacing system, but these flat steels are supposed to sit over your erector spinae muscles and end at your sacrum (between your “Venus dimples” if you have them). If the corset steels are sitting further apart, then they are sitting partially on your oblique muscles, and probably poking into your glute muscle / iliac crest at the back of your pelvis. (Corsets are not the sole-cause of piriformis syndrome, and of course I’m not a doctor, but it’s still my responsibility to caution you of signs of a poor fit. Pain of any kind is not normal in a corset, and you cannot and should not brute-force waist-train your way into making a wrongly-sized corset fit better.)
A too-small corset will often look “too big” from the front
When the side seams of the corset are pushed too far forward on your body (not lined up with the sides of your body) this can paradoxically make the front of the corset look/feel too loose, not tight. This might be the biggest cause for confusion for beginners, because the corset clearly looks “big” in the mirror, and yet here I am telling them it’s too small.
You might notice a bit of flaring at the ribs and hips, but especially the hips. The “pockets” of space in the corset where your hip bones are supposed to nestle into (if they actually matched up with your pelvis on the sides of your body) are resting at the wrong angle, so they stick out awkwardly in front of your body.
To sum up: a too small corset often causes the corset to feel too loose in the front, yet too tight in the back.
What happens when you wear a correctly sized corset:
In 2011 I reviewed an old-style WKD Morticia corset in size 18″, and then in 2013 I reviewed the same corset in size 22″. In the size 18″ corset I was not able to close it smaller than a 6-inch lacing gap (I was wearing it around 24 inches), while the size 22″ I could completely close. I was able to cinch my waist 2 inches smaller in the larger size corset.
How is this possible? It wasn’t because I had trained my waist down; in 2010 I could easily cinch my waist to 22 inches in the right size corset. My weight and natural measurements were around the same between the two reviews (if anything, I was a little heavier on the right).
The reason is because the side seams of the corset properly hit the sides of my body. The “pockets” where my hip bones are supposed to fill are now sitting at the right place, not angled too far forward (or too far back). The top and bottom of the corset also better matched my natural ribs and hips respectively, yes – that is not to be discounted, but even a too-small corset with the right rib and hip springs can give similar fit issues if the waist size is smaller than your body is ready for.
I also had the right torque to pull the corset closed because the two sides of the lacing system were angled more linearly (closer to 180°), I didn’t have to fight the curve going around my obliques, and I didn’t need the extra arm strength to overcome that angle, if that makes any sense.
Once upon a time, I tried to jump down to a 20 inch corset too quickly and I spent a good 6-12 months backtracking to correct it. My very old bumbling vlogs from 15 years ago are still available on Youtube, for those who care to learn through my mistakes. Although it seems counterintuitive, going back to a size 22″ corset (and a traditional back-lacing corset) was the key to eventually reaching my waist training goals.
“Waaah, buying sequentially smaller sizes is a scam to get you to buy more corsets!”
Yes, some people actually say this, and I can hope you can see now why this is not the case. Corsets are almost never a case of “one and done”, nor should it be. Trying a number of corsets, even just 2 or 3 different ones, is an excellent way to understand the spectrum of quality and construction methods in the corset world. (You don’t need to try as many as I have; >200 is admittedly excessive.) It’s a good way to get to know your body and the way it responds to the compression of a corset. Experimenting with a few corsets (even different brands) will give you context so you can form educated preferences toward more lightweight/ flexible constructions, or more rigid constructions, etc. above and beyond the actual springs/fit of a corset.
(As a brief aside, this is not the first time that I’ve mentioned shopping around. Starting with a budget OTR corset (especially from a reputable brand with a reasonable return policy) is often a low barrier to entry and a gateway into bespoke. If you really fall in love with the corset lifestyle, then you can upgrade to a custom corset later on. While any good custom corsetiere will be able to meet you at the level you’re at, if you come to the table with prior experience, you’ll be able to communicate with a corsetiere from a place of deeper understanding, you’ll be able to confidently keep up with their jargon, and you’ll have more assertion as to what you want out of the commission.)
But I digress. When it comes to corsets, I do not believe in “vanity sizing”. Trying to tightlace in a corset that’s obviously too small for your body or your experience level is a recipe for injury. Sizing down gradually is not only imperative for your comfort and wellbeing, but it will often be more effective for your journey, as shown above with the Morticia corsets.
Wearing corsets while navigating body fluctuations
(If this doesn’t apply to you, feel free to skip this section.) While other reasons/ forms of weight fluctuation will be discussed below, the most commonly discussed is obviously fat loss. I am usually very careful when talking about weight loss in combination with wearing corsets/ waist training, because the two can easily be conflated.
Wearing corsets in and of itself is not a guaranteed weight loss tool. The end; full stop. I remember Andrea Johnson of Lovesick Corrective Apparel (now sadly defunct) was particularly brazen with her wording, but she summed it up effectively (enough so that I remembered it for years after the website was gone!) Per the Wayback Machine:
That being said, it would be irresponsible of me to skirt the subject forever. The combination of corset use with weight loss is worth brief discussion; the reality is that GLP-1 agonist medications have become more and more prevalent in recent years. I know of several folks who don’t own a scale and instead wear their corsets, using the lacing gap (and/or corset sizes in general) as a non-scale gauge to track their journey. While some might use corsets as an NSV (non-scale victory), sometimes their use is for purely practical reasons, like containing loose skin or a panniculus, reducing chafing and increasing their quality of life.
In the past, I have mentioned that if you’re intentionally losing a large amount of weight and you have a limited budget, I might recommend waiting until weight loss has slowed to around 1 pound a week before purchasing a corset. Beyond the obvious issue of a corset quickly becoming too big (always a disappointment), divining the future is still currently hard to do and we can’t predict that your proportions are going to be exactly the same when you drop weight; one person might become more pear-shaped as their weight changes, another person might become less pear-shaped.
(For this reason, if a client insists on purchasing a corset during a chapter in their life where they anticipate future weight loss, cosmetic procedures, hormone changes, or other dramatic transformations, I will sometimes recommend a style with adjustable hip ties like these or these so the hip-to-waist ratio can be fine-tuned to adapt to their own bodily changes.)
How much weight can I gain/lose and still fit into the same corset?
It’s a little different for everybody, but among the folks I’ve collaborated with (and my own personal experience), the difference of around 15 lbs (~7kg) is usually the point that a person would size down (or up) in a corset. However, the Toilet Paper effect is real, so I’m more comfortable giving a percentage of about 10% body weight.
Exceptions exist, obviously. In folks who tend to accumulate inches in their waistline almost exclusively (especially visceral fat and not subcutaneous fat – often in AMAB wearers), as little as 5 lbs can make a difference.
Other bodily fluctuations to consider
After speaking with so many corseters for my book, Solaced, I also acknowledge that body fluctuations exist – sometimes extreme fluctuations of 15 lbs or more from one week to the next, due to edema, Chagas-related bloating, PCOS, as a side effect of blood pressure medications, or various other health issues / medications. While corsets are many things, being “one size fits all” is certainly not one of them.
While I do not make medical-grade corsets, I do have a potential solution: the newly released Expander Panels! I teased it on Patreon last week, which is now free to read, even for non-members. If you (much like myself) have experienced changes to your body size but you don’t want to let go of your old corsets, this accessory may become a game changer. This expander will shift the side seams closer to the sides of your body where they should be (and help close the gap in the back), ultimately making your corsets functional and wearable again without requiring you to purchase an entirely new corset.
I plan to make a dedicated post all about the Expander Panel and how it can work for weight gain, weight loss, and medical conditions that cause extreme weight fluctuation. I can’t wait to tell you more very soon.
*(Mostly pertaining to waist training success, obviously – but if you want to extrapolate that to success in other ambitions in your life, feel free to see the width of your lacing gap as a wider indicator of success, if the shoe (or corset) fits 😉. After all, corseting is not for the impatient – it takes dedication, consistency, and discipline over months or years.)
Hi, I’m going to copy part of the explanation about corset back-lacing that I received from another country.
Just as a warning: if anyone reads this, please don’t interpret it as ‘the truth’ for your corset. Always follow the specific recommendations given on this website.
I removed the name of the corsetmaker who gave this explanation about her own construction style, because I don’t want to create any discomfort.
I’d like to know your perspective: does the explanation below make sense for a different type of construction, or does it not make sense at all?
Corsetmakers try to create general guidelines that work for most people, but the specifics depend heavily on each person’s anatomy. Still, she states that extreme back-gap shapes are generally incorrect. Ideally, the corset should always be evaluated by the professional who made it, since only they can confirm whether the gap corresponds to the intended pattern.
She clarifies that a slight \/ or /\ shape can be normal, depending on the person’s body. But when the opening becomes exaggerated – the sides almost shifting toward the hips – that indicates a measurement or drafting issue. She also says there is a common myth that corsets must close perfectly parallel, | |, but this comes from fashion corsets and mannequins used for waist training, which reduce measurements more evenly.
She also explains that the) (shape usually means the person is tightening primarily at the waist, which is good, unless it becomes extremely exaggerated with the top and bottom opening too widely. That extreme version is rare. She adds that women with more side fat may see a \ / shape at the beginning, which is normal for that body type. But when you see a \ / gap on someone very thin, she warns that this can indicate a problem, because the pelvic bones do not compress.
Finally, she explains that she only uses extra-rigid back bones for plus-size clients and for men. Even then, you can still lace a bit looser in the back if needed. She concludes by saying that corsets with extra-rigid back bones will only close parallel | | or in a V shape, \/ or /, and they look noticeably straighter. Many corsets made by Marcelo Lima use this type of bone. The Brazilian version is slightly less rigid than the imported one, which is actually an advantage for most people.
then explains that for the back gap to look almost straight under clothes, a beginner’s corset must have very minimal waist reduction. She also says you cannot compare beginners’ experiences to those of long-term tight-lacers, because people who have been wearing corsets for years have much more flexible waists than women who are starting out.
Hi Heloisa,
I don’t mind commenters naming corsetieres, if it will add context to the conversation. Your comment echos what I’ve generally said in my other article about corset gap shapes, since the article directly above pertains to the lacing gap width, not really about the shape.
I agree that The “V” or “A” shaped lacing gap is usually not a problem, it won’t damage the corset and depending on the corset’s spring and the wearer’s anatomy, it may be more comfortable for the wearer. Among the corsetieres I’ve spoken with, the range of acceptability is that the gap at the top is not more than 2 inches bigger or 2 inches smaller than the bottom. For example, the lacing gap can be 3″ open at the top, 2″ open at the waist, and 1″ open at the bottom, and it should not cause damage to the corset. For OTR this is more acceptable, while for couture and bridal is it not acceptable.
A “)(” gap can sometimes be indicative of the wearer having lordosis or swayback. It creates a hollow at the lumbar area which the corset collapses into. Lovely Rats Corsetry and Electra Designs are two corsetieres with personal and professional experience in patterning for clients who have extreme swayback. I have tried a Lovely Rats corset that she made for her own body, and it laces with a “()” shape on me, as my lumbar curve is much less than hers. In this case it’s not a property of the bones but rather the way the back panels are cut.
That said, I’ve experienced quite a few corsets with flexible boning which fit me with a “()” shape, and I made a separate article about this phenomenon. Two of these corsets were made to my measurements, and the problem was with the steels being too flexible. As someone with a naturally firmer body, even at the height of my waist training journey, flexible steels do not pose any advantage to me – quite the opposite.
The only Brazilian brand I’ve tried is Madame Sher, and although her corsets are on the softer side, I would not say the back steels are excessively flexible. I’m certainly willing to try other Brazilian brands, including Ferrer Corsets (Marcelo’s brand) – I am loose acquaintances with him and several other Brazilian makers, but many of them don’t ship internationally.
Hello, Lucy. Thank you so much for replying. I’ve been spending the past few days reading your posts here and watching your YouTube videos, trying to understand the reason behind the differences in recommendations.
I found it very interesting that you mentioned hyperlordosis and lordosis, because I have this condition myself, and many women in Brazil do as well. I wasn’t able to find a general government statistic about it, but I did find part of a study done on children that shows the following percentages:
1 — “In Brazil, lumbar hyperlordosis (accentuation of the curve) disproportionately affects females, with studies indicating a prevalence of up to 72.7% in some female samples.”
2 — “Data in Adolescents: A study in Rio Grande do Sul found a 78% prevalence, where the female sex was positively associated with the condition (PR = 1.08). Other analyses in schools show that hyperlordosis is more prevalent in females (especially at ages 11, 14, and 15).”
The comments I posted above are Madame Sher’s comments on this topic. We have a large corsetry group in Brazil, and there is an image that circulates widely there showing a back-lacing pattern that is almost the opposite of what is recommended elsewhere, with the gap shapes (), )(, and II being the usual ones for the general female body type here, when following the general pattern. However, Sher has always made it very clear that this is not a strict rule, because each person’s anatomy follows its own structure, and sometimes a corset has specific construction details and completely different purposes. (She has even said she has received clients sent directly by orthopedists, and those corsets do not follow the same lacing rules.)
I’ll add two more comments from her about the “)(” and “()” back closures.
()
Thayane:
“Hi girls! I need some help, please!
I started tight-lacing yesterday. I watched the tutorial on Sher’s website showing how to lace the corset, but when I looked at the photos posted here in the group, I noticed that everyone’s corset closes with two straight edges | |, and mine closes like this ().
So now I’m thinking: either I sent the wrong measurements, or I’m lacing it incorrectly, haha.
My waist without corset: 71 cm.
With the corset (very tight like in the photo): 66 cm.
My goal is 62 cm. Thank you!”
Sher Leandra Rios:
“The only issue is that you’re tightening too much at the top. Other than that, it’s great. You’ll have plenty of room to work the waist without putting pressure on the ribcage or the flanks — just be patient, that’s the most important thing.”
Iris Freitas Duarte (Admin):
“Whenever I see a photo like this, I find it strange! I even thought in other cases that maybe the back bones were soft… but I can see now that this is common.”
Sher Leandra Rios:
“So, there’s a difference between being curved like this () and being completely twisted and wavy, Iris. In this case, she will be able to straighten the back as she loses waist measurement.
If I had used those extra-rigid back bones, she would only be able to tighten the entire torso evenly — which is not recommended for a beginner unless she is plus size.”
—
)(
Someone asks whether using a more flexible bone at the grommet line would allow people to over-tighten the waist. Sher replies that the bone she showed is a stainless-steel flat bone and it does bend slightly. The real issue is when the corset is not tightened properly after tying the knot: in that case, the bone may twist inside the channel and hurt the wearer. This is why the channel must be very snug to prevent this from happening.
She also explains that this flexibility does not make it easier for impatient users to over-tighten; the opposite is true — most people take a long time before they are able to tighten only the waist effectively. With a lacing bone, people tighten faster because they compress the entire ribcage, which has a large capacity for expansion and retraction. The finish using a lacing bone looks neater and makes the back look perfectly straight, but it cannot be used for every tight-lacing client. If she could, she would have already made it standard in her brand.
Sher then explains that for the back gap to look almost straight under clothing, a beginner’s corset must have very minimal waist reduction. She also says you cannot compare beginners’ experiences to those of long-term tight-lacers, because people who have been wearing corsets for years have much more flexible waists than women who are just starting out.
—
And I’d like to add one more question:
Do you think this specificity in the recommended back lacing shapes is mainly due to general body anatomy, or is it something related specifically to the type of boning used, in your opinion?
Hello Heloisa,
The statistics you mentioned is very interesting. Some societies consider hyperlordosis to be very attractive especially in women, but I’m of the opinion that it can be caused by an imbalance in the muscles and ligaments in the pelvis, abdomen, bum and even the thighs. Some muscles groups are abnormally tight and other muscle groups are too weak and underused. This can be mitigated with physiotherapy and (sometimes) bracing, like with a well-fitting corset, but by encouraging this posture, it can cause increasing pain and instability over time.
From your quoted conversation, I think I agree that the “()” shape is more likely to be seen in inexperienced wearers who have a resistant/less flexible, or less yielding waist. Often, but not always.
I’ll share what I wrote in response to your other comment on the “Help, I’m Lost” page:
Whether the lacing bones bow in a “)(” or “()” shape depends on several factors, including the rigidity of the steels, the patterning of the corset itself, your anatomy (whether you experience lumbar lordosis), how tight the boning channels are, and even the softness of the corset’s fabric in some situations. I have a full article on it here:
https://lucycorsetry.com/2016/01/05/how-to-correct-bowing-corset/
I won’t claim to understand the reasoning behind different corsetiere recommendations for lacing gap shapes. In North American school of thought, “)(” and “()” shapes can cause twisting of the bones within the channels, which can lead to the steels themselves permanently bowing over time. It can be painful to the wearer to have the steel bone twist and have the “blade” side of the bone sitting against the back muscles. Grommets can rip out under the uneven pressure. I’ve seen this damage for myself.
If a novice corset wearer owns a corset that’s currently too curvy for them, it’s somewhat expected to have a short period of time where the top and bottom edges of the corset will flare away from the body in a mild way, until their waist can accommodate more waist reduction. It’s not pretty, but can be worn around the home during this “ugly” phase, as it’s better for the longevity of the corset than wearing it with a “()” shape.
But as you know, women are not a monolith, and there are hundreds of ways one corset can be different from another in its patterning, construction methods and materials. We can speculate on the different schools of thought or even cultural differences, but we are unlikely to come to a consensus.
Hello Lucy. I looked a bit deeper into the topic of lordosis and hyperlordosis because I found it quite interesting. When I was younger, I was actually evaluated for this, but I didn’t need any treatment because my hyperlordosis was considered functional rather than structural. In other words, the curvature of my spine was slightly above the average range that is usually considered ideal, but when it was evaluated through X-rays, no structural alterations in the vertebrae or spine were found that would indicate a clinical problem.
Because of that, I became curious and started trying to understand the topic better. One thing I discovered is that the definition of hyperlordosis can vary quite a bit depending on the measurement method used. In many radiological studies, what is considered a normal lumbar lordosis in adults usually falls somewhere between about 30° and 60°, depending on the technique and the population studied. In some cases, values slightly above this range can be classified as hyperlordosis even when they are not associated with pain or structural abnormalities.
During my research I also came across some anthropometric and biomechanical studies suggesting that certain ethnic groups show average differences in pelvic tilt and lumbar projection. For example, some research in physical anthropology suggests that certain African populations tend to present, on average, greater anterior pelvic tilt and more gluteal projection, which can visually increase the lumbar curve without necessarily being pathological.
This seems to be more related to pelvic shape and body mass distribution than to any muscular dysfunction or spinal abnormality. In fact, some biomechanical studies suggest that women in general have a greater capacity to accommodate lumbar lordosis than men, something that has been associated with an evolutionary adaptation to help compensate for the forward shift in the center of mass during pregnancy.
I realize that this goes a bit beyond the initial topic of the discussion, but I thought it was interesting to mention because it might also help explain some differences in how corsets fit and adapt to different body types. Since Latin America in general has a population with a high level of genetic admixture between African, Indigenous, and European peoples, I wondered if part of this anatomical variation could also appear in some individuals in our region through genetic inheritance. This might help explain why certain body characteristics can influence how a corset fits on Brazilian bodies in particular.
Finally, I would also like to thank you for sharing your perspective on this topic. After reading your explanation, I actually opened a discussion about it in the group I’m part of so we could talk specifically about the possibility of steel bones deforming and grommets being damaged due to angular lacing tension. I’m not sure if we will reach a clear conclusion about it, but I truly enjoyed learning more about the subject and looking at it from a different perspective.
I have front and back rib fractures and need something asap for shaping mine is broken
Hi Samantha, has your doctor given you any guidance as to what kind of bracing would be best for your situation? There are many different silhouettes for corsets, the right one may help you but the wrong one could do more harm than good.
Lucy, I am so happy you are still doing this work for the corseting community and corset-curious alike! And I’m excited to see what you have brewing!