Hi, Frances, everyone.
I believe there's a bit of an issue here that's sort of ignored....
You CAN do permanent shaping of the body. We start too late, generally.
Start with Long Island Staylace Association. Tightlacing and corsetry is their core interest, I don't think they have a real business (Sell some books, I think, but no corsets.)
Once you have that info, you can start searching broader range of pages and people. Younger you start, the better, and after a certain point, you'll only be able to shape the soft tissues. Because of how the mind/eye perceives things, you can look quite good even then, but you won't be able to form the floating ribs, say, or limit the growth of same ribs. Also, that is a VERY restrictive activity - you can see similar with the rings worn by some tribe's women in Africa, the rings show wealth (and thus her status as a bride). Over time, the rings deform the rib cage... Google it.
So that puts you at instead tightlacing on an adult frame. You can, over time, manipulate the body a lot. Make an 18" waist, for example. This takes years of dedication, and the right body to start with. (Also, genetic women have a different body, different ribs, and can adjust things more than men due influence of Estrogen. One of those times where gender doesn't matter, unless you were on estrogen during puberty, you'll have masculine bone structures to deal with. Changes the joints, for instance, and the growth plates are active longer, whereas a woman's bone plates will be stopped sooner due to estrogen. Also, tendons are going to be different in women. And I hope it's clear we're talking DNA here, so no insult is intended towards the AMAB woman, or AFAB man. But we're often fast and loose in language, so - don't read into it, just understand it's using genetics as determinant, and if you're mosaic, chimera, intersex - it's a roll of the dice there, too. )
Anyway - you'd need to work out diet, exercise, corseting, and commit yourself to it essentially permanently. And most of that you can do without the expense of corseting, while you're doing research on the hard-core trainers. EX: Get diet in order (Ketogenic, maybe? But that might mess with breast growth, so maybe Paleo? figure caloric requirements, find out what works best for you - E.G., I NEED meat, but I lift heavy. I can eat grains, thanks to being Italian; Germanic descendants, not so much, I'm told.) Work on exercise plan next - addressing the WORST parts first. I.E., intraabdominal fat, sloppy triceps, etc: HIIT. Building strength? Lifting, or Yoga? Both? Do you have scar tissue (like my right arm is turning into)? Massage might help, foam roller will help, witch hazel (you can take it as s tincture or tea, I think - works to lower inflammation that way, too.) Etc.
THEN, and only then, would you want to really aggressively address corseting. It's costly, especially for the good ones, and if you stop for a while, you'll lose a lot of progress.
You'll get the most benefit from the other tasks, though. :-)
And you can always wear a corset for a temporary reduction, or as a fashion statement.
-Dianna
