Join academics Kiara Bulley, Sal Edwards, Anna Hickey, and Kath Horton for a panel discussion exploring the complex cultural legacy of the corset.
The corset is a powerful metaphor in discussions about bodily autonomy, the policing of feminine presentation, and ongoing feminist tensions around hyper-feminine expression. The panel will examine how this historical foundation garment continues to shape contemporary expectations of the feminine, particularly through the rise of activewear and shapewear industries.
The panel will trace the corset’s evolution from utilitarian undergarment to high-fashion statement, and from its 1980s punk reclamation by designers like Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier to today’s cottagecore aesthetics and ‘Glassons corset’ fast-fashion iterations. Does the corset represent patriarchal oppression or—as some contemporary artists like Michaela Stark argue—serve as empowering armour, allowing wearers to sculpt their bodies on their own terms?
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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 research is interested in how diverse and marginalised identities from LGBTQIAP+ communities can be affirmed and emboldened through fashion.
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 reimagination.
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 is a researcher, writer, artist, and arts worker based in Meanjin/Brisbane. Over the past two decades, they have researched, taught, and developed curricula across fashion design, history, and theory, with a particular focus on the intersection of fashion and gender. They are a regular contributor to the Institute of Modern Art’s newspaper Town Hall and have delivered talks, workshops, and tours at Queensland Art Gallery, UQ Art Museum, and the State Library. Queensland They are co-curator of the current IMA exhibition Confronting Femininity.
