The fitted upper section of a dress, extending from the shoulders to the waist—the part of a garment that must negotiate the most complex topography of the female body: bust, ribcage, shoulder blades, waist.
The word bodice is a corruption of “bodies,” reflecting the garment’s original function as a separate, fitted undergarment in the sixteenth century. The bodice was the structural core of women’s dress, stiffened with whalebone, wood, or steel, laced tightly at the back, and designed to reshape the torso into the silhouette demanded by fashion.
The evolution of the bodice charts the history of women’s freedom. The boned bodice of the Victorian era constrained; the dropped-waist bodice of the 1920s liberated; the sweetheart neckline of the 1950s framed. Each change in bodice construction reflected a change in what women were permitted to do with their bodies. In contemporary dress, the bodice survives as the architectural heart of evening wear, corsetry, and any garment that must hold a shape the body does not naturally provide.
