Corsets are held together by lacing, unusually (though not always) at the back. Tightening or loosening the lacing produces corresponding changes in the firmness of the corset. Depending on the desired conclusion and date period, corsets can be laced from the foremost down, from the foundational up, or both up from the ground and down from the top, using two laces that meet in the middle. It is difficult — although not impossible Sexy Corsets — for a back-laced corset-wearer to do his or her own lacing. In the Victorian heyday of corsets, a well-to-do girl would be laced by her maid, and a gentleman by his valet.

Until 1998, the Guinness Book of Creation Records listed Ethel Granger as having the smallest waist on record at 32.5 centimeters (13 inches). After 1998, the category changed to "smallest waist on a living person" and Cathie Jung took the title with a 37.5 centimeters (15 inches) waist. Other women, such as Polaire, also have achieved such reductions (14 inches in her case).