Join academics Kiara Bulley, Sal Edwards, Anna Hickey, and Kath Horton at the IMA for a panel discussion exploring the complex cultural legacy of the corset.

The panel will examine how this historic foundation garment continues to shape contemporary expectations of the feminine, particularly through the rise of activewear and shapewear industries. Tracing the corset’s evolution from utilitarian undergarment to high fashion statement, from 1980s punk reclamation by designers like Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier, to today’s cottagecore aesthetics and ‘Glassons corset’ fast fashion iterations.

The conversation will address debate surrounding the corset’s meaning — whether it represents patriarchal oppression or, as some contemporary artists like Michaela Stark argue, serves as empowering armour that allows wearers to sculpt their bodies on their own terms.

Unpacking the corset, the discussion will consider the garment as a powerful metaphor for broader questions about bodily autonomy, the policing of feminine presentation, and ongoing feminist tensions around hyper-feminine expression in popular culture.

Anna Hickey

Dr Anna Hickey is a fashion researcher, engagement designer and party maker. She is interested in how fashion can be used as a tool to connect communities, affirm identities and bring people together. She is a founding member and co-director of The Stitchery Collective, whose collaborative art practice explores fashion as a tool for engagement, space-making and relationship-building. Her personal research is interested in how diverse and marginalised identities from LGBTQIAP+ communities can be affirmed and emboldened through fashion.

Kath Horton

Kath Horton is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion at QUT whose research and practice explore the aesthetics and politics of getting dressed each day. Her work engages with community economies and creative reuse as sites of resistance and re-imagination.

Kiara Bulley

Kiara Bulley is a fashion designer, maker and illustrator. As a practitioner, she develops collaborative creative work through The Stitchery Collective and her own locally produced fashion label Bulley Bulley.

Sal Edwards

Dr. Sal Edwards is a researcher, writer, artist, and arts worker based in Meanjin/Brisbane. Over the past two decades, Sal has researched, taught, and developed curricula across fashion design, history, and theory, with a particular focus on the intersection of fashion and gender. Sal is a regular contributor to the Institute of Modern Art’s Town Hall paper and has delivered talks, workshops, and tours at institutions such as QAGOMA, UQ Art Museum, and the Queensland State Library. Sal is co-curator of current IMA exhibition Confronting Femininity.