Can You Wear a Corset as a Top?

Yes. Absolutely yes. A corset worn as a top is one of the easiest ways to make jeans look like an outfit, and it has gone from fancy dress territory to a genuine wardrobe staple over the last couple of years.

The trick is in what you put with it. Get that right and you look deliberate and expensive. Get it wrong and you look like you got halfway through dressing and gave up. Here is how to land on the right side of that line.

How do you style a corset without looking like you are in costume?

One rule does most of the work: balance the corset with something relaxed. A corset is tight, structured and shiny with intent. Pair it with something loose and it reads as fashion. Pair it with something equally tight and it reads as a nightclub in 2006.

So: wide leg trousers, straight cut jeans, a slouchy blazer thrown over the top, an oversized shirt left open. The contrast is the whole look.

The three combinations that never fail

• Corset and good jeans. Dark denim, a heel or a clean trainer, hair up. Takes thirty seconds, looks like you thought about it for an hour.
• Corset and a blazer. Instantly dinner appropriate. Button the blazer for the walk in, open it once you are sitting down and have a glass in your hand.
• Corset and tailored trousers. The one that turns heads at a work Christmas do without getting you a chat with HR.

A clean, structured shape like the Shirley of Hollywood black corset works hardest here, because black hides nothing about the shape and everything about the fact you are technically wearing underwear.

Where should a corset sit, and how tight is too tight?

The top edge should sit just under the bust with the cups supporting rather than squashing. The bottom edge should land at or just below your natural waist. If it is riding up towards your ribs every time you sit down, it is too small or too short in the body for you.

Tightness: you should be able to breathe normally, eat a meal and laugh properly. If you cannot do all three, loosen the laces. A corset shapes your silhouette beautifully while you have it on, and that is exactly what it is for. It is not doing anything permanent to your body, so there is no prize for suffering.

Lace it from the middle outwards, pull the slack through the waist gap, then tie at the back. Ask someone to help if you can. It is a nicer job with company anyway.

What do you wear under a corset as a top?

Usually nothing, and that is rather the point. Most corsets built for outerwear have padded or boned cups that do the supporting for you, so an extra bra underneath just creates lumps and ruins the line.

If you want a little more coverage, a sheer long sleeve top underneath softens the whole thing and takes it from Saturday night to Saturday afternoon. A plain white tee under a corset is also a proper look, and a very forgiving one if you are nervous about skin.

The white corset top is the one to reach for if you want that lighter, less obviously naughty version. It plays very nicely with denim.

Which corset works best as a top?

Look for three things. Cups with some structure, a longer body that covers your waist rather than stopping at your ribs, and a fabric that does not look like it belongs under a duvet.

Satin and faux leather both read as outerwear. Sheer mesh and delicate lace read as lingerie, which is glorious in its place but harder to wear to a bar.

For maximum swagger, the faux leather corset with its grommet detailing and side zip is unmistakably a top, not underwear, and it looks properly good with jeans and a heavy boot.

If a full corset feels like a lot, a half corset is the gentle way in. Something like the Roza Zuza half corset in red sits at the waist over a top or a slip dress, cinches the shape and asks far less of you on a first outing.

Can you wear a corset all night, realistically?

A few hours, comfortably, if it fits. Longer if you loosen the laces once you have been photographed and everyone has seen you.

Practical bits nobody mentions: eat something before you lace up rather than after, choose a side zip if you will be on your own getting out of it, and accept that you will sit up very straight all evening. Honestly, that part is half the fun.

The bit we are really getting at

Wearing a corset out is a small, deliberate act of showing off, and it should feel like one. You will catch yourself in a window and stand a bit taller. Someone will look twice. You will enjoy it far more than you expected to.

And when the night finishes somewhere more private, well. You are already wearing the best possible thing for that, and you did not have to change into it.

Have a look through the corsets and pick the one that makes you want to be looked at.