Laced Up: 18 Iconic Corsets from Film & Television

From Scarlett O'Hara to Xena, these are the underpinnings that stepped beyond the screen and into fashion history

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

Few garments have worked harder in film than the humble corset.

For more than a century, costume designers have used it to communicate everything from power and ambition to romance, rebellion and utter ruin. A single tightening lace can signal the expectations placed upon a young woman. A structured bodice can transform a queen into a monarch of the ages, a vampire into a legend or a showgirl into an icon. Long before a character speaks, the corset often tells us exactly who they are.

Some became inseparable from the stories themselves. Scarlett O'Hara's lacing scene in Gone with the Wind remains one of the most famous moments in Hollywood history while Satine's ruby corset came to define an entire era of fashion when donned by Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge.

From gothic heroines and doomed aristocrats to pirates, vampires and queens, these are a few of our favourites.