Extreme beauty: Vanessa Wilde's secret diary
Hoping to reclaim her waist for Christmas, Vanessa realises she is too late for liposuction, so tries out bondage corsetry instead.Absolutely the saddest moment in Gone With the Wind is when Scarlett O’Hara measures her tiny waist after having a baby, and finds it isn’t. Tiny any more, I mean. God, how I sympathise. After I had monster baby Rollo I did all the exercises, but my waist had just thickened. And my ribcage. It wasn’t too bad because my waist was tiny in the first place, and I could always get something in M&S’s Firm Control range to wear under really tight dresses. But I’ve suddenly discovered that I can’t get into my Christmas party wardrobe. It must be because I sacked Warren, my personal trainer, weeks and weeks ago. I realised it was exercise that was bursting all those tiny veins on my cheeks. Obviously, if you go bright red in the face and huff and puff with all the strain (God, I hate exercise), something’s got to give. So I haven’t been working out at all. But I have been filling out. Panic! My lovely Vivienne Westwood suit, my amazing Galliano jacket, my skin-tight Donna Karan LBD — all too tight. Of course, with Christmas practically here, there isn’t enough time for liposuction, and I’m certainly not having a couple of ribs taken out, like some celebs.

But suddenly, I had a brain wave. Scarlett O’Hara. Corsets. Of course. Mammy pulling away at the laces — “Harder, Mammy, harder.” Corsets mean you can skip surgery. I’ve got lots of pretty corsets already, but they don’t do much serious squeezing, so I rang all sorts of grown-up underwear places asking for a real, old-fashioned Victorian corset. Rigby & Peller were a bit chilly. A woman at Agent Provocateur told me their corsets only reduce your waist by up to 2in; they don’t do what she called “extreme corsets”.

Extreme! That’s what I wanted. And something about the way she said the word made me realise what I needed were the ruder bits of the internet.

I soon realised that the word corset is practically code for bondage, and found myself visiting some far-out cyber boutiques full of rubber and control corsets for cross-dressing men. Lurid pictures, men in scary Hannibal Lecter-like masks. I like bondage chic up to a point, but some of it is simply silly. And all that sweaty rubber. Even our surfing wetsuits in Cornwall were horribly smelly. Still, there were some serious corsets among all the gothic tat. And, while I’d really like to have one made for me by the ultimate corset-maker, Mr Pearl of the 18in waist in Brighton, he needs lots and lots of fittings, and there are hardly any corset-fitting days left before Christmas. So it had to be off the peg.

In the end, I decided on Fairygothmother — intriguing website and interestingly dodgy name, but not that far away, in Camden Lock. They were quite sweet on the phone, and said they could reduce my waist by up to 4in. Brilliant.

Actually, I have had this done before, at school. We were doing a Victorian play, and a dotty St Mary’s old girl had a collection of genuine Victorian dresses. She lent us the lot, with original corsets to go with them. These were yellowing-white and hideous — unlike the pretty, lacy ones at Fairygothmother.

Once you’re in one, with all the hooks and eyes done up and your bosom adjusted upwards, you can just shut your eyes and think beautiful, while someone starts tightening. It’s amazing. Suddenly, your ribs are narrow and fragile, your bosom sculpted, your waist unbelievably slender. It feels great. Like being touched all over. Firmly. Masterfully.

I damn nearly did get to minus 4in, but I decided to stop just short. There’s no point in overdoing it. Obviously, your ribcage gets squashed (God knows what happens to your insides), and you can take only shallow breaths from the top of your compressed lungs, giving you that exciting feeling of faintness. But the sense of poise — chin up, back straight, careful movements — is so thrilling, it’s worth it. Being controlled and controlling all at once.