Cathie Jung – The Tiniest Waist in the World
The tiniest waist? Why that belongs to Cathie Jung the corset training wonder of the world who entered the Guinness book of records in 1999 with her teeny weeny 15 inch waist! She now holds the official record for the ‘tiniest waist on a living person’, and Cathie Jung is now over 70 years old! She declared that she still does the housework, including running the hoover round, all in her corset. Everything Cathie wears has to be custom-made made to fit her distinct body shape, not least her skillfully designed corsets which are breathtakingly detailed and have to made made from custom drafted corset patterns. Cathie’s measurements are 39 bust – 15 waist – 39 hips and she’s 5ft6 in height and she weighs in at 135lb.
Cathie’s waist has gained her a lot of press attention, she even appeared on ‘This Morning’ about 5 years ago, to show off her devastating curves. This is the most current of her TV appearances but there have been others. Even though her figure has brought her a great deal of publicity and fame, back in Victorian times when corset training was commonplace, Mrs Jung’s waist would have been considered a standard size for the time.
Aside from Cathie Jung there have been several famous tight-laced waists in recent years; Ethel Granger likewise attained a 15 inch waist back in the 1930s and Cathie actually attempted to don one of Ethel’s 15 inch corsets back in 1992. Mr Pearl, a famous corset maker who designs corset patterns and makes corsets for top fashion houses, has himself achieved an 18 inch waist, an incredible feat for a male corset trainer.
The waist reducing achievements of these remarkable tight-lacers would have been thought standard back in Edwardian and Victorian times, nevertheless, these sizes are seen as very extreme by today’s standards and not something to be undertaken lightly! If your thinking about corset training do not consider it an easy choice, it does involve modifying almost every aspect of your lifestyle. Cathie Jung wears her corset 24 hours a day, taking it off only to shower. Eating has to be done little and frequently and her skin looked after properly, she can’t sit on anything low or soft like a sofa, so despite the awesome impact of her look, it takes a lot of discipline to achieve.
Mr Pearl – a Tight Lacer and a Corsetiere To The Stars
Corsets have actually never really fallen out of style completely but especially during the last decade or so they seem to have been well and truly thrust once more into the fashion spotlight by the influx of famous designers dealing with this famous garment and really making the corset their own. More and more designers have been sending their tight fitting boned bodices stalking off down the fashion catwalks and the traditional corset design has been re styled several times over. I can’t move on without briefly mentioning the bevy of beautiful starlets that have donned the corset for every little thing from rock shows to red carpet walks; Rihanna, Beyonce, Dita Von Teese, Madonna, Jerry Hall and Jennifer Love Hewitt to mention just a few, have been strutting their stuff works by iconic designers such as; Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, Chloe, Christian Lacroix, Vera Wang, Louis Vuitton, Antonio Berardi and John Galliano. Victoria Beckham was personally laced into her wedding dress by Mr Pearl!
Behind the huge designer couture labels who is it that makes all these sequined, frilled and lace adorned garments? Who composes their corset patterns and stitch the steel boning channels? Well, of all the names working for these fashion power houses, one stands head and shoulders above all the other designers:- Mr Pearl, a man who is himself as unique as his corset designs are. He doesn’t just make these garments but wears them too – he has a tiny 18 inch waist, shaped by corset training corsets of his own making and is a very strange, alarmingly abnormal shape to behold. Mr Pearl also has an odd background; an old fashioned English gentleman by nature he was born in Africa and given the name Mark Pullin. A reserved and polite man he spent a lot of his life in England but now resides in Paris, where he works in his studio sewing for the numerous large couture houses requiring his expertise in design and his corset making skills. Mr Pearl is now in his late forties and has actually been active in the fashion business for longer than any of the other corset making designers I have come across. He is arguably the top Corsetiere alive in the world today. Mr Pearl had his first taste of waist training at a very early age when he used to assist his grandmother in lacing up her corsets. He took up the practice of corset training in his early thirties after the male tight-lacer Fakir Musafar inspired him. Despite his close work with the fashion industry, Mr Pearl doesn’t follow fashion trends but rather designs corsets around the ideal of the perfect figure: “Corsetry presents limitless, virtually unobtainable possibilities, it can always be tighter, more beautiful, longer in the front. The limit is physical; outward appearances are endless.” – Mr Pearl
Corsets made by Mr Pearl are still readily available to the basic public but the cost of one runs into the thousands (just like it does for all top end couture garments) and are constructed by a team of skilled corset makers with a number of people working together on any one piece. My favored Mr Pearl productions include a large number of those worn by Dita Von Teese, but especially the one worn at the Gaultier A/W season 2010 show. It has black skeletal detailing with a ribcage to the front and a spinal column to the back over a pale nude colored corset training corset. His Metal ‘Biker’ Corset which was made for Thierry Mugler was another iconic piece by Mr Pearl that I personally went crazy for. It even had wing mirrors and a flame paint job! Beyonce loved it enough to wear it in one of her music videos. In stark contrast I also love the stunning light pink Gaultier gown Mr Pearl made, worn by Sophie Dahl at the S/S 2010 catwalk show with its reams and reams of down-to-the-floor ribbon which laced up the entire back of the dress. The styles of corset created by this corsetry wizard are so unique and so inspiring that he really is my favorite of all the corset designers out there.
