Empowerment or Restriction? What Wuthering Heights and the Corset Revival Say About Fashion and Female Agency

We might only be in the second month of the year (yes, I know, really), but already a style—certainly not a new one—is emerging as a key fashion silhouette. It is, of course, the corset—a Minoan invention, though mostly associated with the Victorian era and all its attendant rigidity—which quite literally reshaped women’s bodies (and internal organs, if we’re being graphically honest) to fit society’s neat categories.

It’s precisely this legacy that makes the corset so much more than a garment. It has always been a signal of power—first through the enforced dress codes of its time, later as a way for women to reclaim agency and challenge its own history. Whichever way you slice it—or, should I say, lace it—the corset makes a statement about power, and more specifically, who has it. Power and dominance pulses throughout Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights and no where has the corset renaissance felt more loaded—and lauded—than in the film’s press tour. Margot Robbie’s many ‘tourdrobe’ looks have leaned heavily on, if not historical accuracy, then at least historical inspiration.

There was the brocade corset from British Fashion Awards winner Dilara Fındıkoğlu, paired with buckled black jeans to double-drive home the point of constraint. Then there was the blood-red python bodice—also by Dilara—that was slashed through the arms and braided back together with scarlet ribbon. For anyone who has read the book, the symmetry between the novel’s themes of passion, danger, and psychological tension was evident in the sharply structured silhouette and crushed-rose hue. A matching micro miniskirt and pointed pumps completed the look, their snakeskin-like texture lending an armour-like quality. Rather than softening the historical silhouette, Fındıkoğlu’s designs have amplified it, using the corset’s traditional shaping to create a modern, assertive statement.

Fashion as a Political Mirror

The corset has always been synonymous with power. Before its rebirth as lingerie or provocation, it was a marker of class, wealth, and control. This is a garment that not only required time and money, but someone to lace you in. I’m mixing films here, but think about Rose being heaved into that corset in Titanic: audiences in that moment could instantly understand the restrictive (literally) gilded cage of the life laid out for her. In Wuthering Heights, bodies are charged with that same tension and passion is forced into rigid social structures.

The corset’s return in 2026 is hardly surprising. Fashion is flirting with a new Gilded Age: opulence is being flaunted against rising inequality, just remember that gaudy Gatsby-themed part Trump threw last year—and as social cuts tore through the States, too. In this world of extremes, the corset fits right in.

Historically, it has thrived in moments of imbalance, when the wealthy have felt able to flaunt their conspicuous consumption—I called it last year when I wrote that Lauren Sánchez’s mega-money hen do sounded the death knell for quiet luxury. Today’s revival mirrors just that: sculpted waists, luxe fabrics, high-drama silhouettes that imply a lot of time has been dedicated to dressing up. For Margot Robbie, who of course, looks sensational, this is part of her job, and so there is a distinction here: she is working these events even if her uniform looks markedly different to mine and yours.

It’s easy to chalk this all down to costume, but fashion always acts as some kind of cultural commentary, and against a backdrop of a world increasingly anxious about women taking up space, the corset’s resurgence is a curious one—even if, as a trend, it can move easily between runway and street.

The Paradox — and the Appeal

Fashion history offers countless counterpoints to the idea of the corset as purely oppressive. Vivienne Westwood’s punk reclamations, for instance, endure as symbols of defiance—most recently revived by Charli XCX, who wore a diaphanous Westwood gown to the LA premiere (she wore a bodiced Westwood dress for her London nupitals). Bust a-heaving and with her signature sultry, defiant stare, she embodied the corset as empowerment rather than constraint.

Jean Paul Gaultier, too, weaponised glamour in ways that turned the corset into a bold statement. His conical busts for Madonna—affixed to tightly corseted bodices—read more like a “come closer if you dare” than a Victorian waif with a fistful of smelling salts.

Dita Von Teese, too, approaches the corset as power and control, using discipline as a form of glamour. Yes, her ultra‑controlled silhouettes convey a kind of frothy, rose‑tinted nostalgia, but it’s clear that she is the architect of her own design. It’s a claim Kim Kardashian made when she was laced into a couture corset rewoven from antique silver brocade by Maison Margiela’s John Galliano for the 2024 Met Gala — a look that cinched her waist to dramatic extremes. Kardashian’s relationship with corsetry (going as far back as those waist-trainers and Hervé Léger bandage dresses) is trickier to get behind, but there’s no denying that it’s a strategic one. Whether that’s through red‑carpet dressing (and the press attention she knows it’ll bring) or the commercialisation of her — also press‑generating — shapewear empire, Kim Kardashian makes body sculpting incredibly profitable.

Then there’s Alexander McQueen’s sculptural armour, and Dilara Fındıkoğlu’s raw, confrontational bodices: designers have continually transformed corsetry into a language of control, spectacle, and self-authorship.

Of course, the tension remains. Corsets still carry the weight of unrealistic body ideals and restrictive histories, and not everyone reads their return as progress, especially against a backdrop of Ozempic-fuelled thinness. But fashion has always thrived in contradiction. It’s in that space—between reclamation and discomfort, glamour and unease—that the corset currently sits.

Regardless of personal preference—though the general consensus seems to be that the Wuthering Heights press tour has delivered Barbie-level sartorial hysteria—the resurgence of such a historically loaded garment in an era of widening inequality and renewed scrutiny of women’s bodies offers a telling reflection. The corset continues to ask: who among us gets to be decorative, who gets to be powerful, and who decides the difference.