'High' Fashion

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” This quote struck me as funny, so I decided to look up some of the worst (and most painful) fashions of all time, which, unfortunately, weren’t done away with after only six months.

The corset. Back when women didn’t have the right to vote, corsets were all the rage. They promoted good posture and made the wearer appear slimmer. These contraptions kept the back erect (now found to cause stress on the lower back) and made it hard to breathe. This caused women to faint at the slightest shock, which was considered ‘charming.’ Girls have died from too-tight corsets causing their ribs to bend inward and puncture their lungs.

Foot-binding. In the time between the tenth and twentieth centuries, Chinese women would begin tying their daughter’s feet so they would get smaller and smaller. The binds cut off circulation and left the feet horribly deformed. The pain lasted the duration of the procedure and would come again if you were to untie the feet. Girls were reduced to tottering about slowly, but they usually just sat still.

No doubt that today you’ll be able to find even more with all the recalls going on.