There are many adages that describe fashion as an experience to be borne. Style over comfort. Killer style. The quite explanatory fashion is pain. The idea that we must tolerate the discomfort for the sake of beauty creates a sport out of getting dressed – it is a marathon and we are the runners, limping over the finish line. In our competitive society, it becomes a badge of honor when we stay out all night in a pair of six-inch heels that make medieval torture devices look cuddly. Wow, we say. Did you see those shoes? Killer.
Though painful, blisters on our heels are not often a life-threatening experience. We don’t die from tights that sag or bare-leg thigh-chafing. The gorgeous wool sweater that makes you feel as if you have hives isn’t going to suddenly end your existence on this strange planet. Fashion may sometimes be pain, but it is a bearable pain. We shoulder through it and emerge victorious, comforted by the thought that we looked amazing.
But what if the pain wasn’t bearable? What if, at the end of the night, those six-inch heels turned against you and left you bleeding-out in a darkened alley? Would you still wear them? No, don’t answer so quickly. Your negative response rings a bit false – because there are precedents. Oh, are there ever precedents.
An unassuming plant, with bell-shaped purple flowers and large leaves, the atropa belladonna doesn’t look like it could kill you. But appearances, as we well know, can be deceiving. Also known as deadly nightshade, all parts of this pretty plant are poisonous or narcotic – a single leaf could potentially kill an adult. It has long been a favorite poison, often associated with beautiful, devious women. Agrippina the Younger was rumoured to have used it to off her husband, Emperor Claudius of Rome. But it’s the alkaloid in the roots and leaves that has been sought after as a beauty product for millenia.
Belladonna drops have been used since ancient times as a way to dilate the pupil, giving the eyes a bright and glistening appearance. It acts as an antimuscarinic, blocking the receptors in the muscles of the eye to constrict pupil size. This wide-eyed effect came with severe consequences – visual hallucinations and distortions, the inability to focus the eyes, increased heart-rate and, eventually, potential blindness.
Pictured: the Marchesa Luisa Casati, infamous femme fatale and muse, used belladonna drops to achieve her bright-eyed stare. Portrait by Adolph de Meyer, 1912.
Lead has been used in cosmetics since ancient times – Egyptian men and women used a kohl compound containing lead to darken the rims of their eyes. But the use of lead to lighten the skin is often what is associated with the murderous metal. A paste, known as ceruse, became extremely popular with upper-class women during the Renaissance – it lightened the skin to the ideal shade and was handy in covering disfiguring smallpox scars. Unfortunately, lead is extremely poisonous – and many women died as a direct result of their beauty routines.
Women weren’t the only targets of murderous cosmetics – the ceruse industry was centered in Holland, and many Dutch workmen were poisoned during the manufacturing process.
Pictured: Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I in the 1998 movie, Elizabeth.
The Dutch ceruse workmen weren’t the only casualties in the beauty and fashion industry. In 18th and 19th century England, mercury was used in the production of felt hats, which were extremely popular with men and women. The animal pelts used to make felt were dipped in an orange-hued solution of mercury nitrate, called carroting. Poor ventilation in the factories resulted in the workmen breathing in the noxious fumes and exposing them to trace amounts of mercury, which accumulated in their bodies and caused such horrors as dementia, paraesthesias, vision and hearing loss, hallucinations and depression.
The expression mad as a hatter is said to be derived from the dementia the hatters displayed after coming into continuous contact with mercury. Some believe that Lewis Carroll modeled his character The Mad Hatter, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, partly after the stereotype of an insane hatter.
Pictured: Hat-makers dip felt hats into nitrate of mercury solution. From W. Gilman Thompson, MD, “The Occupational Diseases,” D. Appleton and Company, 1914.
Those beautiful dresses, laden with festoons of silk and rosettes, so wide the wearer cannot sit down. Oh, how we romanticize and satirize the Victorian crinolined dress. In the popular 1956 musical The King and I, a crinolined Anna Leonowens (Deborah Kerr) is surrounded by nosy children who are trying to look under her skirt. When she expresses confusion, she is told that they simply want to know if she is shaped like that.
Hilarity aside, the crinoline was actually a dangerous apparatus that exposed women to death by burning. It’s immense size was perfect for sweeping through fireplaces or against grates without the wearer’s knowledge. Essentially a hollow cage filled with air, the structure of the crinoline easily caught fire – and the girth of the dress made it extremely hard for anyone to get close enough to smother the flames. In The Anatomy of Fashion: Dressing the Body from the Renaissance to Today , Susan J. Vincent describes a Lady Dorothy Neville, who very nearly lost her life because of her skirt.
She and a party of ladies were in the drawing room after dinner, waiting for the gentlemen to join them. ‘Somehow or other my voluminous skirt caught fire, and in an instant I was in a blaze.’ Lady Nevill kept her presence of mind, and rolling herself in the hearthrug eventually beat out the flames Just as well she was able to help herself, for ‘None of the other ladies present could of course do much to assist me, for their enormous crinolines rendered them almost completely impotent to deal with fire, and had they come very close to me, all of them would have been in a blaze too.’ The scarring on her arms remained with Lady Dorothy for the rest of her long life.’
Pictured: Georgiana, Helen, Louisa and Caroline Dillon on the steps of Clonbrock House, 10 November 1863. National Library of Ireland.
“The Ladies’ Head-Dress”
Give Chloe a bushel of horsehair and wool
Of paste and pomatum a pound
Ten yards of gay ribbon to deck her sweet scull
And gauze to encompass it round.
Let her gown be tucked up to the hip on each side
Shoes too high for to walk or to jump
And to deck sweet charmer complete for a bride
Let the cork cutter make her a rump
Thus finished in taste while on Chloe you gaze
you may take the dear charmer for life
but never undress her, for out of her stays
You’ll find you have lost half your wife
The Lady’s Magazine, 1777
Is it necessary for me to describe the monstrosities of 18th century wig-making? The towering contraptions of lace and feathers, sometimes festooned with complete reproductions of battle-ships or birds’ nests? Marie Antoinette was a fan, and we all know where that got her. But losing your head aside, was it also known that the wigs were made using lard to hold the shapes? Or that women slept in them, their heads propped up to keep from mussing the artistry? Well — they were and they did. The lard caused quite the problem with lice and mice infestations and women often slept with a cage around their heads to keep away the rats. Rats. Now — that is some killer style.
Pictured: Marie Antoinette wearing the “Frégate de Junon” hairstyle. Fiell Image Archive, 2011
Katy Jones is the Editor of The Blind Hem. She is a fashion-school dropout with a Creative Writing BA from the University of Houston. She blogs at Dirty Hems, sells vintage clothing at Moonshine Hill and is usually spilling her guts on twitter. She lives in Texas.
