Waist not, want not.

Hollywood sparks corset craze, and vintage dealers feel the pinch.

The Boston Herald; 6/6/2001; Radsken, Jill

The waist's done gone. Corsets are back.

The fashion world has fallen in love again with Scarlett O'Hara's 18-inch waist -and the constrictive undergarment that achieved it.

The fantastic corsetry in the film "Moulin Rouge!' just sets the stage for what's to come. Victoria's Secret plans to start selling the boned undergarments next month, and a surge of fashion designers, including Carmen Marc Valvo and Stella McCartney for Chloe, have picked up the thread, spinning out fall clothes constructed from corsets.

Trumpeting the innerwear-as-outerwear craze is the French fashion house Chanel, whose fall line features black patent leather corsets set between blouses and skirts. Maggie Norris, a New York-based couturier, has a line of corsets, from leather-trimmed versions paired with riding pants to embroidered silk corsets worn with suede skirts, in her "Equestrienne" collection.

"It's about femininity," Norris said of the corset's appeal. "It's more of a spirit you embrace."

Norris scored the greatest celebrity corset coup so far when "Moulin Rouge!' star Nicole Kidman wore one of her pieces with a skirt on the April cover of Vanity Fair. But she maintains corsets can just as easily be worn with a pair of jeans.

"The possibilities are endless," she said of the undergarment's versatility.

But will corsets catch on as casual clothing? Will they catch on at all? At a recent screening of "Moulin Rouge!" Ashley, a 23-year-old purchasing assistant, said she hoped not, dismissing them as "disgusting."

"I wouldn't even wear a bra that's uncomfortable," she huffed.

Her friend, Bridget Read, also 23, agreed, saying the hourglass shape was "too not my style." A few minutes later, however, Read, who works at Hotel Meridien, reconsidered.

"I could see it in a dress," she said.

Catherine Martin, co-costume designer and production designer for "Moulin Rouge!" unabashedly supports the corset's return. She described the undergarment as an "extraordinary piece of engineering" that gives clean lines and better posture.

And (presuming this is a good thing), "it has a great fetish aspect to it," she said.

Martin conceded corsets can be uncomfortable. "Something has to give," she said, "it has to go down or up," but she insisted that in our fitness-minded society, women are "not threatened by the problem."

Fashion trends are rarely started by a single person, but some credit (or blame) for the corset's return belongs to Karen Augusta. An antique clothing dealer for 22 years, Augusta runs Antique Lace and Fashion out of the third-floor ballroom of her North Westminster, Vt., farmhouse.

Augusta does lots of business with top American and European fashion designers - Donna Karan recently bought a collection of bustles - and of late, a number have turned to her antique corsets for inspiration.

"I think it's a fascination for what's hidden," said Augusta, whose pieces have appeared in French Vogue.

This style of hidden allure comes with a high price tag. Victoria's Secret's off-the-rack corsets, already selling in Manhattan, cost $75 to $300. Augusta said her corsets usually sell for several hundred dollars apiece; her Web site lists a 1786 corset that belonged to a sea captain's wife for $2,400.

Still, vintage dealers can barely keep up with demand. Gail Sitterly, a corset dealer from Pennsylvania, spent several hundred dollars on two 100-year-old corsets at Skinner auction house in Boston last fall,and quickly resold them for profit.

"It's an instant sale, there's no question," Sitterly said.

What's questionable, though, is how daring women - particularly Bostonians - want to be. One brave South Boston woman recently went out for drinks with some friends wearing a gold corset over a blouse that tied at the neck, and a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.

Her 5-year-old daughter told her she looked like George Washington, and her friends agreed.

"Hey," she said. "It's a look."

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