Victorian Engineering in underwear. The Corset

Victorian corsets have a feature no other item of clothing has. The simple steel busk is an engineers dream. On one side is a pin with a large head and on the other is a hook tapered to a slot. This simple device on the front of a corset can be hooked on to the pin and when under tension will not come off. So to put on a corset first you have to loosen the laces. The knot at the bottom of the corset should not be touched. That is not the way in. The two loops of lace from the centre of the corset need to be fed back through the eyelets until they are only approx. 6 inches long. The laces will make the back of the corset widen and it becomes a bit floppy as the two halves move about. The corset can then be wrapped around the waist and the busks clipped together.