That had to hurt!
Waist trainers and corsets might be the go-to slimming gadget for some of Hollywood’s elite, but there is one starlet who isn’t feeling the trend: Lily James. The 25-year-old actress, who stars in the live-action remake of Cinderella, revealed in a new interview that she purged solid foods while donning her her famous ice blue ball gown.
“When [the corset] was on we would be on continuous days so we wouldn’t stop for lunch or a lovely tea like this — you’d be sort of eating on the move,” she told E! News. “In that case, I couldn’t untie the corset. So if you ate food it didn’t really digest properly and I’d be burping all afternoon in [Richard Madden]‘s face, and it was just really sort of unpleasant.”
The remedy for James’ tummy constricting woes? “I’d have soup, so that I could still eat but it wouldn’t get stuck.”
Costume designer Sandy Powell was the mastermind behind the corset James needed to wear to portray Belle. “It became a ritual and we’d do it every morning,” James said about the dress. “We put it on and it would be layer by layer and it would feel ceremonious, you know?”
She revealed to Us Weekly at a press event just how taxing it was to go through a wardrobe change. “Because you have to get it off, which took 20 minutes and then get it back on, so it was like a huge break in filming,” she said. “We ended up having these porta-lou’s that we like to put under our skirts,” she said. “[The corset] was tight, but in a way like, only as tight as corsets ever are and they’re always uncomfortable.”
The Downton Abbey star doesn’t want her fans to get the wrong idea, — she does not equate being thin with beauty. “For girls growing up sometimes I think they get the wrong idea for what women should look like,” she explained. “And I think it’s so important to be healthy and confident and natural.”
