All restrictions are lifted

Corsets can give you an hourglass shape. But they can also bulge, pinch, and leave you gasping for breath. Here's how to nail the fit

- Shreya Choudhuri [e-mail]

No need to faint. Everyone seems to be in their corset era, but no one looks as out of breath as they used to be. The ladies in Bridgerton (Netflix's raunchy, Regency-period drama) seem to do just fine in theirs. And every celebrity, from Bella Thorne and Sydney Sweeney to Janhvi Kapoor and Ananya Panday, have been lacing themselves in at every opportunity.

It's a long-standing fashion quick-fix. Squeeze into one, get an assistant to tighten the stays at the back, and a nipped-in waist magically appears, the bust gets lifted, a cleavage is conjured from thin air, the posture gets straighter, the silhouette becomes an hourglass. But shopping for a corset can be a Victorian nightmare if you don't know what you're doing. Celebrity stylists Shaleena Nathani, Priyanka Yadav, Priyanka Kathuria and Manish Mishra, who have dressed Bollywood stars such as Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, share their best hacks on buying your first corset.

Bring out the measuring tape.