Oscar-winning costume designer John Bright looks at the evolution of the corset from the 16th century to the restricting steel and whalebone Victorian corsets to today's fashion as outerwear. Oscar-winning costume designer John Bright looks at the evolution of the corset. From it's beginnings in the 16th century, the corset evolved in the 19th century with smaller high-waisted stays in the fashion for empire styles. During the 19th century, restricting steel and whalebone Victorian corsets were worn to create an hourglass figure, while in Edwardian times, the straight-fronted corset was invented to create an S-bend silhouette that was said to cause less constriction to internal organs. Falling out of fashion during the 20th century, with a brief renaissance during the 1940s, today's revival in fashion corsets are often worn as outerwear rather than underwear