Strange but True Fashion Facts
Over the years there have been fashion statements, fashion faux-pas, fashion hopefuls and fashion disasters. In the 18th century it was even considered fashionable to wear fake eyebrows made from mouse skin! As mice were caught they were skinned and cleaned and shaped into eyebrows which the well-to-do and fashion plates of the times glued over their real brows.
False eyelashes were invented for Hollywood producer D.W. Griffith who wanted to enhance Seena Owen’s eyes for a 1916 film. The eyelashes were made out of real human hair.
Long before that era women were applying color to their faces by many different means. In Cleopatra’s time berries and other natural ingredients were used to enhance the face. Nowadays different ingredients are used in the making of colors for the face. Today’s average woman uses 6 pounds of lipstick in a year but few of them know that one ingredient frequently used in manufacturing lipsticks is fish scales.
The oldest son of Charles XIII, Prince Philip of Calabria, loved gloves so much that he sometimes wore 16 pairs at a time. And, at the end of the 15th century, Charles VIII of France tried to find more comfortable shoes for his feet, one of which had 6 toes. He had shoes designed with a square toe, which came to popularity immediately after he began wearing them. The first pair of Doc Martens were made from old tires. Little was it known how popular these would become.
Marie Antoinette was modest about her body so she wore gowns which buttoned all the way up to the top of the neck. She was so modest, in fact, that she wore these gowns even while bathing!
Elizabeth I loved hats so much that she made it mandatory for all females over the age of 7 to wear a hat on Sundays and holidays. Anyone who refused to do so was stiffly fined.
Many years ago the blue-blooded society of women would change their garments many times a day. The clothes were never worn again by the royalty, but were instead, given to the slaves. The blue-blooded have long worked with designers to create the perfect fashion piece for themselves. Queen Victoria’s family even had a bustle designed which played “God Save The Queen” when she sat.
What stars and royalty wear or have worn can play a large part in society’s idea of fashion. When Clark Gable was at the height of his career men’s wardrobes were often fashioned after his style. Once, while on screen he removed his coat and wasn’t wearing a vest. Immediately vests sales dropped by 40%.
Even if a particular fashion isn’t all that comfortable millions of women will wear it simply because it’s considered fashionable. Victorian times promoted the hourglass figure causing women everywhere to wear tight corsets. Some women wore the corsets so tight that in doing so, they often broke ribs.
Later, women chose fashion for comfort. In 1930, when Marlene Dietrich wore slacks in the movie “Morocco”, women across the world lined up to purchase them. Since stores weren’t catering to women wearing slacks many of these women lined up in the men’s department for their wardrobe choices.
Hair designs have also had an important impact on society, even to this day. Women who had straight hair wanted it to be curly. Those with curly hair looked for options to straighten it. In 1906 the first hair perms began, requiring clientele to sit for six hours or more while a dozen brass curlers were positioned. Each curler weighed close to 2 pounds making this an uncomfortable ritual at best. Aristocratic ladies of the 16th century even went as far as to grow pubic hair as long as possible then adorn it with ribbons and bows.
Some fashions can’t be seen by the naked eye but are sought after nonetheless. Designer Andre van Pier once created a bra adorned with 3,250 diamonds. Madonna’s “bullet bra” which she wore during her Blonde Ambition tour was designed based on an antique breastplate worn by Italian soldiers. Although women didn’t scramble to get the breastplates they did run to the nearest department store to purchases brassieres based on this design. Early bras weren’t exactly a fashion statement, though. Some consisted of simply a ribbon which tied two handkerchiefs together.
Beautiful, ugly, uncomfortable or feeling like a second skin, fashion will continue. Times have changed, though, and many fashions are designed with comfort in mind. Whether you go along with the crowd or develop your own style will be up to you although looking back on some of the fashion statements from the past should give you a clue as to what not to do if you want to be considered fashionable.
