The Vancouver Sun

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

All chinched up in corsets and loving it.

Trends: Lace Embrace fills form-fitting niche ling in style, by Lucy Hyslop.

To get a real handle on how minute Cathie Jung’s middie is, tear off a strip of duct tape 15 inches (about 38 cm) long. Put the two ends together and you’ll find it’s about the size of a large peanut butter jar, or a large bagel or, incredibly, Jung’s waist (she holds the world record for the smallest one on a living person).
This week the 68-year-old flies from her home in Old Mystic, Conn., to Vancouver for a fitting with corsetiere Melanie Talkington, whose international reputation is growing at whiplash speed.
The former Kwantlen College fashion design student was whisked off to Playboy’s 5Oth birthday bash in Seattie last year to fit Marilyn Manson’s fiance Dita von Teese, the burlesque star. Other clients live in New York, Japan, England, Chile, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.
Jung discoverèd Talkington’s talents through the website of her company, Lace Embrace Atelier, on West 10th Avenue.
“It’s always fun to try something new — it will be exciting to meet her,” explains Jung, who owns some 100 corsets and has held her Guinness Book title for six years. “We are always looking for new people who are knowledgeable about corsets. 1 like her work, although I haven’t seen it in the flesh.”
The meeting comes after a year of correspondence and Talkington, whose cus tom corsets start at $400, concedes she is a little anxious. “Cathie is the queen of corsets, so it’s a great honour,” she explains. “But as her figure is so extreme, it has been a challenge for me to find styles that will be flattering and allow for the required waist reduction. I have prepared her corset muslins for the fitting. The shape of the corsets is unbelievable.”
While Jung’s waist remains tightly reined in, her celebrity has spread wide. She first came to worldwide fame after the Guinness Book of Records spotted her through photographs at various balls (mainly Les Gracieuses Modernes, which are held for corset aficionados) with her husband, Bob, now a retired orthopedic surgeon.

"We certainly did not go to them an say give us some sort of recoqnition. It was never an aim of mine - rather a simple byproduct,"Jung explains.
"It took about a year of negotiations with us to agree to being in the book. We wanted them to treat the subject tastefully and respectfully.”
For Jung, this is no freak show. Her corset-wearing is a way of life. Since 1983, Jung has been corset-clad for 23 hours every day — with only an hour off for a bath. It is these decades of hardcore “training” that have forced her waist to 15 inches from 26 inches (66 cm).
Enduring such a disciplined existence is all about the accentuation of the curves, she explains, the difference between the size of the hips and the waist, and the chest and the waist. “This ultimate look is what promotes wearing a corset,” Jung states. “And I enjoy it. Generally you look better and your posture is better.”
Every few years fashion houses and Hollywood flirt with corsets, a trend that dominated 19th-century society. Think Gina Lollobrigida’s outfits, Madonna’s iconic conical bra by Jean Paul Gaultier, Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge and last month pop star Kylie Minogue, before her diagnosis with breast cancer, ordered a $12,000 corset from the celebrated Parisian corsetiere Mr. Pearl to wear on her tour.
Talkington says many Vancouveritas also wear corsets. "Some want them for parties, weddings, weight loss, support. People are always amused by corsets and curious to know how it feels. Many are surprised to find that they are not uncomfortable and enjoy the hug it gives you.”
Jung adds, “There’s no question that corset-wearing is getting more popular, but I don't think it will ever go back to what it once was. I think people are too used to being untethered — just not constrained in any environment.” She describes the unfettered manner of dress in the United States as “gross.”
For novices, a couple of inches can be immediately knocked off your waist with a corset. But Jung advises how anyone serious about following her lead “to start with a minimal reduction in a custom made corset," to avoid being put off. Jung's own style and posture evoke a more elegant, more outstanding Victorian period. Her website which hosts myriad pictures of her inciuding one of an extraordinary bathing-suit corset has more than a million hits a month.
Perhaps she was bom in the wrong era?
"I would have liked to be around in Victorian times for the elegance of lifestyle and the niceties of manners," she says.
It was a similar admiration of the past that prompted Talkington to start collecting vintage corsets. She has nearly 100, possibly the largest collection in Canada. “I was so thrilled when I found my first antique corset, but it was so fragile that I couldn't try it on. So I made an exact copy to see what it was like to wear a real corset. I wanted to know how Victorian women felt in their corsets, not how a modern designer thought a corset should look or feeL I wanted to see the type of fïgure it gave me” she says. “Although my interest was actually first piqued by Dolly Parton — I was amazed by her figure and my mother told me she wore corsets."
In Victorian times, the desire for an hourglass figure drove women to have their lower “floating” ribs removed, although Jung says she has undergone no such surgery and is in good health.
Jung knows that the world record title is coveted one - one woman is apparently trying to challenge her for it. “It’s not a problem at all,” Jung says. “Everything about size is subjective. It is the proportions that really matter.”
One of the most famous corset-wearers of recent tiines, for example, was the late Ethel Granger who reduced her waist by 10 inches (25 cm) — from about 23 inches to 13), but Jung — who is five-foot six and 135 pounds — has decreased her waist by about 11 inches (28 cm) so her achievement is a fraction more dramatic (and every pinch counts in this game).
Without a corset, how big is her waist after all these years? “If I leave my corset off for a few days — and I’ve only had to do that only on a couple of occasions when I had some minor surgery — It goes to a 20- to 21-inch waist.”
Jung is aware that her appearance is not to everyone’s taste and that some even think the look ridiculous. “It doesn’t offend me,” Jung explains “It’s their opinion — and I respect everyone’s opinion. My own children are grown up and not at all interested, and since the community (Old Mystic is a small town) is aware now most people are quite positive.”
As well as this obvious self-confidence, it seems the other key to the success of Jung’s waistline is that she has never been a big eater. That’s lucky — just where would the food fit?

Lace Embrace: 604-737- 1119/www.laceembrace.com
cathiejung.com

Cathie Jung will be at a Corset Soiree and burlesque show at Babalong, 91 Powell, Saturday.