Cramped Couture | Torturing Women Through Fashion

Corsets
Va-va-voom pinup girls! This S-shaped curvature aid to form the ideal hour-glass shaped body is men's delight and women's obsession. But taken to extremes, ladies past and present have managed to squish their torso's into such submission as to physically alter their own skeletal structures! Rib cages are meant to be a little bit more like an APPLE than a banana, but what who cares when sex appeal is at stake! Breathing is so 2000 and late.

Bras
Hippie Chics holler! (Um, bra-burning, babies....think hard now!) This often painful garment wins the title of clothing most often purchased in an incorrect size. I wondered what that pinching sensation was... This particular over the shoulder boulder holder is our favorite hate due to it's likeness to the ever-comfy mammogram machine. Also known as the Torpedo or Cone Bra, the Bullet Bra was designed and worn largely in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s. This bra was the staple for the image of the "Sweater Girl", an all-American girl-next-door beauty made popular by Hollywood bombshells including Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. Of course in later days, we 80s kids know Madonna felt oh-so-like a virgin in HER Jean-Paul Gaultier eye skewer, er, bra.

Stiletto Heels
Short girls unite! YES we LOVE shoes. I know I know, cliche. But sometimes the truth hurts. Then again, so do the shoes! Stilettos, another saucy standard for the femme fatale, have been in existence for thousands of years, and were depicted in Egyptian tombs as early as 4000 BC. However, the modern stiletto didn't arrive on the scene until the 1950s with the invention of the thin metal heel rod. Creator Salvatore Ferragamo named the shoe after the stabilizing "stiletto" and we've been stabbing and trailing public bathroom paper sexily ever after.

Skinny Jeans
They look soooo hot! Just as long as you're a size 0-2. No one wants to guess how your anti-cellulite cream is working via test tights, so please, do not sport this look unless you nibble on napkins for lunch. The Skinny Jean was first made popular, you guessed it! In the 50s. Rock has been the main catalyst for the hand painted snatch suffocaters starting with Elvis and James Dean, continuing with Sex Pistols and Ramones, and today can be seen on any rocker teen carrying a backpack. Today's versions include stretch and other strategic fit tactics, but still could warrant an amber alert with your gyno. Wear at your own risk!

G-Strings
Thong, th-thong, thong thong...thong song. Yes, G-strings technically belong to the cheek splitting crack dwellers of all panties, thongs. The variety offering the least amount of coverage, the G-string and it's modern brethren first sprung up in the flesh fearless country of Brazil. Tourists braved the beaches in their scanty suits, but brought the style stateside in the form of an undergarment. History argues, however, that the style may have originated far earlier on MEN in ancient athletic cultures. Women don these designer butt flossers to decrease pantie lines and enhance the round curve of the buttocks. Someone should tell muffin tops over there her booty smoother of choice may in fact be a girdle.