All I Want to Wear This Summer Is a Corset With Jeans

What is it, 1985 or something?

Maybe I’ve been watching too much TikTok, maybe I’m just completely regressing — maybe those things are related, maybe don’t ask me so many questions? — but whatever the reason, all I can think about wearing lately is a corset with a pair of jeans.

This is hardly a new look: The street style photo of Teddy Quinlivan above dates all the way back to 2016, which might as well be a decade in fashion years, and celebrities have been pulling this style trick off on the red carpet for ages. But there must be a “Bridgerton” effect going around (just not for me — I haven’t seen the Netflix series yet, don’t yell at me!), because ever since temperatures rose this spring, I haven’t been able to log into a social media app without seeing a cinched waist.

There are two posts that really sealed the deal for me, the first coming from a rather unexpected place: Brie Larson, Academy Award winner and star of “Captain Marvel.”

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A post shared by Brie Larson (@brielarson)

Larson has been known to experiment with fun, flashy styles, but I generally think of her off-duty style as being a bit simpler. Yet there she was, right at the top of my Instagram feed, wearing a corset with a ruffled bust tucked into floral-printed jeans from Ganni’s collaboration with Levi’s. I could be slightly influenced by my giant crush on the actor, but I thought it looked cool as hell.

Then, just a week ago, there was Sabrina Carpenter looking cute as a damn button in a cream colored corset with lace fringe hanging over her denim. Combined with the decor in the background, she looked like a modern-day Fragonard painting, which is pretty much my ideal aesthetic at any given moment.

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A post shared by Sabrina Carpenter (@sabrinacarpenter)

I got so into this look that I came close to buying the TikTok corset, a style available for a suspiciously cheap price on Amazon that went viral with the youths, before my lingerie-minded friends talked me out of it. (My internal organs deserve better, they said. I believe them.) So now I’m on the hunt for a corset of my very own that I can pair with my favorite pair of Madewell jeans all summer long.

Looking to add a little romance to your style? I rounded up some of my favorite corset styles in the gallery below: