Corsets are some of the most elegant and sexy items of lingerie - emphasizing a woman's natural curves and realizing a legacy of psychosexual kinks. It's both bondage and beauty, restraint and raunch, all in one.

But how does this Brocade Corset measure up?

At almost $60, it's a reasonably priced corset, but comparable to others found online (in fact, this specific one sells for about $7 MORE at an online lingerie store.) The problem is, without being able to see it and touch it, it's impossible to gauge just how 'quality' it is.

Well, the Brocade Corset arrived in a simple plastic bag (delivered in a box) and was simply folded in half. Examining it, the quality of the stitching, brocade, laces and clasps seemed reasonable, even considering the corset was almost $60. It's a fairly rigid, attractive piece of lingerie and the red color is very vibrant. The cloth seems like a good quality too, and shimmers alluringly.

The corset is full length - it covers the breasts and tapers down to about pubis level - flattening the entire stomach and drawing in the waist. It's closed at the front, through a series of study looking clasps. Thick black laces in the back allow you to tighten the top and bottom pretty-much independently.

The boning is fairly rigid - actually more so than I'd expected for a corset this price. It's got some flex to it which would 'curve' around a woman's waist, bust, and hips; but it does strike you as having the strength to actually rein in any squishy bits, and give a woman's body the desired shape. Because it covers the breasts, it takes some fiddling to accentuate the bust, rather than flatten it. But, it should deliver an impressive cleavage even if the wearer's not endowed like Dolly Parton.

The black and red is a beautiful combination - it makes an especially good Victorian/Vaudevillian accessory.

Although I have no criticism for men wanting to wear this corset, we ordered our’s for my wife. Although she's barely 5' tall, she has large boobs and we debated between getting a 'large' or 'medium' for her. In the end, we plumped for 'medium.'

When we first tried on the corset, it wouldn't fasten AT ALL. She couldn't even clasp it around her boobs. In the end, we played with and loosened the laces at the back and managed to shimmy her into it, but that left a large splay of bare skin across her back, which wasn't ideal. The corset was FINE. We simply should have gone for a larger size (although my wife is on a diet and her new challenge is to fit into it.)

S, M and L are fairly arbitrary sizes (as far as I, a man, am concerned.) Especially as I can't realistically consider my wife anything but TINY. So for the benefit of anybody wondering whether to go for Medium, or Large, I'd recommend erring on the side of caution and getting the larger size. You'll have two or three inches to 'play with' in the laces if it's too big.

My wife has 36D breasts and they were really a little too big for the Medium corset, if that helps.

Nevertheless, we got the corset to fit and it fit pretty darn well. My wife is short, so some 'regular' clothes are too long for her width, if you know what I mean (jeans in her size are normally five inches too long, for example. Once, she bought knee-high boots that were waist high for her!)

This corset was actually a good size - the rigid boning was the right size, so it didn't dig into her hips or armpits and held in her tummy beautifully.