Figure Training Fundamentals - book discontinued by Versatile Fashions - review by Kayla

The Figure Training Fundamentals Book is a softcover book that was published in 1997 about historical information about corsetry. The book is 64 pages long, and there aren't any specific chapters. The book is about a foot tall and 8 inches wide. The entire book is printed in black and white though the inner pages are sleek and feel more like photo pages. The front of the book shows a woman in a corset while the back is blank, and since there is no nudity, this is a perfectly acceptable book to read in public though people may ask you why you're reading it. It took me about a half an hour to reach from cover to cover, so it's not a very long read either.

The title of this book is very misleading. This is not really a "Figure Training Fundamentals" book. Since I'd be interested in doing corset training at some point in my future, I was hoping to find good information in here about it. However, this book is actually just the HISTORY of corset training. It's written in a formal tone that is supposed to resemble the tone of the Victorian era where figure training was popular. The information included in the book was taken from old sources - but is not the direct text - it was rewritten to make it easier to understand while still keeping the same information.

The book is extremely easy to read, but I can't exactly call it engaging. Maybe if you have a really big love for corset training, this may be more engaging than I found it. It wasn't a horrible read, but it was fascinating - in a bad way. Some of the things these women went through sounds like stuff that we do to people for fetishes now. (Ballet boots, tight, tight corsets) In fact, the entire book boasted about how healthy it was to have a fourteen inch waist. Now I know nothing about health, but it was kinda corcerning to me, so I don't think anyone should take this as a how-to book.

The book gave things like daily schedules for women in corsets (which included only a 30 minute release from a corset purely for a wash), three pages explaining exactly how a corset is put on, other information describing the fundamentals of corset structure and how important it is,

One of the bigger sections of the book is about twenty pages (1/3 of the book) of an excerpt of the "letters to the magazine" letters that were sent in to a corset magazine back in the nineteenth century. One of these is a really long story that describes a woman named Gloria in which the entire story just describes her desire to be of the narrowest waist and how that effected her life. Not an amazing story, but if you want to have a tiny, tiny waist, it may serve as inspiration.

If you enjoy illustrations, this book does contain quite a few pictures from magazines and ads for corsets back in the nineteenth century. Since the illustrations and pictures are real, you will get a good taste of what people considered a good size back then. The pictures are sprinkled throughout the book and sometimes are small pictures and sometimes are full-page pictures.

Again, the most concerning part is probably the health aspect. I know nothing of corsets, but a thirteen inch waist for a woman doesn't seem healthy. Seeing the illustrations of women with such tiny waists was more concerning than erotic, but it was nice to see into a previous time period. Don't use this as a how-to manual, but if there is a corset training lover in your life, this would make a good present.