From the corset to Spanx: shapewear as a marketplace icon

ABSTRACT

This article presents the marketplace icon of shapewear—clothing that changes the shape of the human body by compressing or enhancing it. The trajectory of shapewear from the highly structured corset of the sixteenth century to the elastic Spanx of the 2000s evidences how this marketplace icon has come into being. Shapewear has materialized many evolving forms of beauty standards and gender roles as it participates in body-centered market assemblages. Market actors, such as manufacturers, designers, media, celebrities, activists, physicians, and consumers, translate shapewear to materialize intentions in the female body, shaping it accordingly. Whether promoting female autonomy or oppression, shapewear stands as a marketplace icon because it has maintained stable market appeal across time and body-centered market assemblages: it shapes the female body while symbolically articulating women’s roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Shapewear
• corset
• Spanx
• feminism
• market assemblage
• body

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the supportive review team, Flavia Cardoso, Pilar Rojas Gaviria, and Robin Canniford for their insights into our development of the concept of body-centered market assemblages.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use the term natural to refer to bodies not modified by shapewear, understanding that, as Orbach (2009, 165) clearly puts it, “there has never been a ‘natural’ body … untainted by cultural practices.”

2. We do not ignore that Blakely built her fortune selling shapewear to women who might not be as empowered as she.