It’s been over a year since the first season of Bridgerton nearly broke the Internet, as tens of millions of fans binged the Netflix series. With the highly-anticipated Season 2 of the scandalous period drama steadily approaching, star Simone Ashley opens up about some less-than-pleasant fashion-related moments she never considered before wearing those period-appropriate corsets for the show.
Too bad velcro wasn’t a thing back when corsets were the norm in England, because of the two major things Bridgerton star Simone Ashley says happened when she donned the corset, one of them I would never have even thought of. In fact, the star says she was unable to even put her own shoes on when all laced up in a corset, noting:
That was… interesting. [I had to be helped] because when you’re in a corset, you can’t put your shoes on.
I guess we take our modern-day, comfy clothes for granted, because the material is plenty loose and flexible enough to allow us full mobility, which includes being able to bend over to do something as simple as putting our own shoes on.
While Simone Ashley may not have anticipated some drawbacks from having to wear a corset, I can’t help but feel like Keira Knightley’s portrayal of Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean taught all of us a thing or two about how deadly corsets can be. I mean, the lady fell off a literal castle into pirate infested waters because of how tight her corset was. Perhaps Ashley hadn't seen the movie before she realized what she was getting into on the Netflix show.
In the same interview with BuzzFeed, Simone Ashley explains just how bad the corset she wore for the Season 2 of Bridgerton got. Apparently, she couldn’t eat while wearing the corset, and who knows how long she had to wear one on long days on set! What’s even worse, though, is that she believes she may have even torn her shoulder due to the garment. Here it is in her own words:
I realized when you wear the corset, you just don’t eat. It changes your body. I had a smaller waist very momentarily. Then the minute you stop wearing it, you’re just back to how your body is. I had a lot of pain with the corset, too, I think I tore my shoulder at one point!
If actresses are going through so much pain and injury from just wearing a garment while filming a TV show, I have no clue how women back in that time period made do with wearing them for longer durations -- and regularly! I’m not really sure how one could get used to not having function of their middle section, but I suppose fashion really did used to mean pain.
Simone Ashley is a newcomer to the cast of Bridgerton, making her debut in the series in the second season. She was cast as the new love interest to the eldest Bridgerton boy, and will be one of the season’s main characters. Of course, while the upcoming season will have her at the head as one of the members of the central couples instead of the now wed Duke of Hastings and Daphne Bridgerton, there's still plenty to remember about the returning cast from Season 1, in particular where all our favorite couples left off at the end.
Now is the perfect time to grab a Netflix subscription if you don’t already have one and binge the first season (again). Season 2 of Bridgerton will be dropping to the streaming platform on March 25th, so you better get a move on and fly through those oh so swoon-worthy scenes so you’re prepared for the brand new love story that will come with the new season. Although, rewatching Season 1 may be a little more painful this time, knowing what we do now about how uncomfortable all those corsets really are.
