Revolution by rouge – the beginnings of the black beauty industry

For many years, much of the beauty products sold to the black community, were made and developed by white owned companies. Which went just as well as you’d imagine. Most of them were designed to bleach skin and make it lighter in colour. Playing up to the idea, that the darker a persons skin tone, the more undesirable they were. This had some unfortunate merit, based in slavery.

It was an acknowledged fact of life, that slaves who had lighter skin were far more likely to work in plantation homes than those who had darker skin. And although slavery had been abolished decades earlier, these white owned companies were more than happy to harp on that light skin was best.

They advertised their products in regional and national black newspapers, with some going so far as to claim their products ‘removed black skin’.

Advert from Charleston’s Afro American Citizen in 1900

Oh, and if this wasn’t bad enough, the ingredients in these products were horrific.

Mercury and lead were particularly popular and white salesmen actually wore rubber gloves when demonstrating the products. Because though they were happy selling this shit to the black community, dear god they didn’t want this poison getting on their skin.

And the community fought back. In 1912, pharmacist Mrs. J.H.P. Coleman spoke to the National Negro Business League and urged them to stop promoting these products, which she quite rightly summaised were:

‘Positive insults to our self respecting ladies.’ 

But obviously, just not buying these products wasn’t going to fix the issue.

So much of the racism and prejudice in Jim Crow’s America focused on protecting the white ideal of beauty and blocking any notion that to be black and beautiful could be a possibility.

How do you combat this? With:

Beauty Culture

This was how many of the pioneers of the black cosmetic industry in the early 1900’s described what they were doing. They were not only going to come up with better beauty products, but they wanted to create a better culture of beauty.

If you’re a make up user, then you know that swiping on lipstick and blushing your cheeks isn’t just part of your daily routine, it’s a ritual that yes makes you feel beautiful, but also fills you with confidence and armours you to take on the world. Which is why the idea of the black beauty culture was so terrifying to white supremacists. 

Because the pioneers of beauty culture weren’t just about to change the cultural landscape cosmetically. They were going to exfoliate the crap out of it, remove the long term damage that lay under the surface and create a fresh canvas on which to build something truly beautiful.

Meet Annie Turnbo Malone, the definition of a boss.

Bossing Beauty

Annie Turnbo Malone was one of the first beauty culture pioneers. And, she had zero qualifications to her name. But she did have a love of chemistry and hair dressing. Which she decided to combine to create safe and effective hair care.

Now, this was a huge deal. In the same way many make up products aimed at the black community sucked, hair care was awful too! Many women with African American hair had no choice but to use products or home remedies that left their scalps not only itchy and irritated, but with a real risk of major hair loss. Annie’s products helped change that.

But Annie didn’t stop at inventing hair care. After all, this was just as much about creating a cultural shift as it was about the bottom line. So, Annie took her company, Poro and branched out.

In 1918 Annie Turnbo Malone opened the worlds first cosmetology school that specialised in black hair and beauty. 

One of the reasons this was so important, was that for many black women of the era they didn’t have a slew of potential career options at the time. For example, in St Louis, where the school was based, women were banned from all but domestic work.

Yet, Annie’s institution created not only new opportunities, but ones that didn’t exist before. It’s graduates went on to open their own salons and businesses. And it’s estimated that around 75,000 jobs were created through the Poro school over the next few decades.

For evidence of just how amazing this was, check out old copies of The Green Book (many are digitised online which is just *chefs kiss*), where you can literally see beauty parlours boom as the years tick on.

Students of Poro

Ok, so what if you can barely braid and hairdressing and cosmetology aren’t your calling? Well, how about sales? 

One of the big issues for black culture pioneers was that not many department stores would sell their products. So, they got round that by hitting the streets.

Through Poro, Annie had a small army of sales people, who went door to door and town to town, selling her products (in fact of these women was Sarah Breedlove, who’d go on to be known as Madame CJ Walker and run her own army of sales agents)

Then there was Anthony Overton, who owned Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Company (catchy) and had a smaller sales force who went to shops and small businesses to sell their products. Along with mail orders and advertisements in regional black owned publications.

By selling this way even more jobs opened up; just to give you an idea of how many that was, by 1919, Madame CJ Walker had around 25,000 sales agents.

Much of these sales forces were made up of women and as with the beauty schools, it was about creating transferable skills, just as much as boosting revenue. There were training schemes for prospective agents and those that completed their courses for Madame CJ Walker were given a diploma from her Lelia College of Hair Culture.

Example of a Madame CJ Walker advert, which replaced cartoon depictions of women with actual examples (in this case, her!)

Creating the new

Along with the obvious finical and career benefits, advertisements for these sales reps also touted something else – change.

In one advert recruiting for Poro the headline reads:

“Be a Poro Agent. Be an active force for GOOD.”

This was very much going towards the idea of the ‘New Negro‘. An idea that grew with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1910’s and 20’s.

It was about throwing off the Jim Crow stereotypes and embracing racial pride, culture and self expression, along with rising political advocacy and fighting for change against racist ruling.

In 1925, The New Negro, published an essay called ‘The task of negro womanhood.‘ which in part discussed how the ever prevalent stereotype of the ‘grotesque Aunt Jemima’s’ helped tear down not only a woman’s self esteem but her role in society. Stating that:

‘the intrinsic standard of beauty does not rest in the white race’

Beauty Culture took all of this on board. Now doing triple duty; creating new formulas, developing a new job market and solid ensuring everything from their products to their marketing empowered the customer.

Many of the sales agents also joined advocacy groups and clubs. This was reflected all the way to the top.

• Madame CJ Walker publicly joined the NAACP’s anti lycnhing movement 
• Annie Turnbo Malone donated thousands to boost local charities and schools. 
• Anthony Overton published The Half Century, which built itself around speaking out on African American issues. 

Example of the packaging for Overton’s best selling High Brown Face Powder

By the mid twentieth century, white owned companies like L’oreal and Avon were now supplying safe beauty products for all ethnicities (though let’s be real, in terms of cosmetics, the colour ranges were still not acceptable until fairly recently)

African American women were able to pick up make up and hair products with a lot more ease. However, the struggle for a fair and equal beauty industry still goes on today.

Although Madame CJ Walker probably remains the most prominent figure of the early black beauty industry. It’s vital we remember the story of the rise of black beauty culture as a whole.

A tale as much of self entrepreneural spirit as social injustice and a revolution by way of rouge.

The people that worked in and built beauty culture, not only provided solid make up and hair care, but helped forge an entire cultural shift that changed thousands, if not millions of lives.

Further reading: Writing and researching this topic I came across so many fantastic books and papers, which I’ve linked to throughout the article. However, here are some that were beyond useful and I urge you to read in full (seriously they are so amazing!)

• Skin Deep: African American Women and the Building of Beauty Culture in South Carolina, Catherine Davenport 
• The business of black beauty: social entrepreneurship or social injustice?, Simone T.A. Phipps and Leon C. Prieto
• Black and Beautiful: A Content Analysis and Study of Colorism and Strides toward Inclusivity in the Cosmetic Industry, Cynthia M. Frisby 
• Annie Malone and Poro College: Building an empire of beauty in St Louis, Missouri from 1915-1930. Chajuana V Trawick.

A brief history of ladies underwear (and why it’s the worst!)

It’s a brave woman who lives her life eternally sans knickers (or panties for you Americans) but until very recently it was the norm.

Though men throughout history wore underwear (Charles ll was a fan of a silken boxer short FYI) it was considered improper for a lady to have anything between her legs.

Tin Man can’t even face the idea of something between a woman legs, that is the level of scandal.

The only ladies who dared buck this trend were scandalously rich Italian women in the sixteenth century. But sadly not everyone in history was richer than Midas yet poor in morals; so medieval ladies wore one long under dress (sexy) which later evolved into slips and petticoats.

By the early Victorian era we start to see ‘drawers’ being worn by women. Queen Victoria was a fan and as with any regal fashion, it soon became synonymous with class…which meant soon enough, everyone was clammering for a pair of drawers.

Within one century drawers went through a full style evolution. From a fashion irregularity to the norm.

They went from functional to frilly, sexed up and colourful.

By 1901 only the poorest women weren’t sporting drawers every day.

But the evolution didn’t stop there, within the next 20 years drawer hemlines went up and thus the knickers we know today was born!

In fact by the 1940s what was once a fashion novelty was now deemed so essential that during WW2 women opted for wearing home knitted knickers rather than going commando!

Stockings

Much like knickers, men sported this underwear trend way before women. Long socks were worn by Vikings, Celtics and Saxons as a way to combat chilly weather and prevent chafing from shoes (believe me, if you think your new shoes pinch, they haven’t got shit on medieval footwear!)

But it wasn’t all practicality, long almost stomach high stockings were a sign of fashion and nobility for men at Tudor Court. One lover of the stocking was Henry Vlll, who  was known to proudly comment on the attractiveness of his calves

Those calves…I can hardly contain myself!

In this era women also wore stockings, but theirs stopped at the knee.

Elizabeth l was a massive fan of silk stockings worn in as many bright colours as possible! People who weren’t Queen obvs couldn’t afford this fancy expensive dyed silk goodness, so most just made do with plain old wool stockings.

Now, I’ll be blunt, stockings wise things stay pretty same-ey for the next few centuries…so let’s fast forward to the 1930s!

By this era hemlines in general were MUCH higher. And with their legs now on show and open to the elements, women needed a strong stocking more than ever.

Sadly they had silk stockings which:

A) didn’t stretch

B) laddered like a mo-fo

But then some beautiful bastard invented nylons

This bastard in fact, meet Wallace Carothers, inventor of Nylon, stealer of hearts

Within 2 days of hitting New York department stores in 1940, Nylons had completely sold out.

This phenomenon wasn’t limited to NYC, with women across America snapping up the incredible new invention. Finally, women were able to strut their stuff without fear of ladders!

And then Pearl Harbour happened…

God damn Pearl Harbour ruining everyones fun

Thanks to the war, nylons were rationed in 1942, with the material only to be used to help the US’s defense.

Women resorted to staining their legs for the illusion of stockings, with canny beauty brands selling liquid stockings (AKA shit fake tan)

When the war was over in 1945, the first thought in women’s minds was celebration, quickly followed by:

‘oh my god I needs to get me some nylons!’

Almost immediately Nylon riots spread across America, as women stormed department stores in the name of underwear.

In Pittsburgh over 40,000 people descended upon one store, desperate to get their hands on 1 of just 13,000 nylons.

Ok so we have the basics down, knickers and tights – but now we need to get us some body!

But how does one achieve that hourglass shape that history has persisted in telling us is IT. Well first you go in and then you go…out

Like way out – From Punch Magazine, 1856-

Crinolines 

We’ve previously talked about crinolines on this blog so I’ll be brief, here’s all you need to know:

Crinolines were a fashion staple in the 1800s, beloved for their ability to create an OTT hourglass shape.

sadly, there was one big downside, you see:

Crinolines hate you and want you to die.

Seriously, no other underwear has a thirst for blood quite like these voluminous contraptions of death.

See! It’s trying to eat her!!!

In 1864 one London doctor estimated that 2500 women had died as a direct result of wearing crinolines. You see the garment had a habit of catching onto things; after all it was bloody enormous. Sadly the thing crinolines mainly caught onto was fire.

That’s right, crinolines led to thousands of women being burned alive in their dresses.

But the danger didn’t stop there – as said earlier – crinolines were out for blood!

There are accounts of women’s crinolines getting caught on moving carts and carriages, resulting in the unfortunate lady being pulled down the street after it.

I’ll leave you with this: one summers day in Herefordshire one lady was out enjoying the sun.

When she went to sit on the grass, part of her crinolines steel supports snapped – sending a jagged piece of metal into a very very uncomfortable place and inflicting severe internal injuries.

Nothing is EVER worth this 

Corsets

Crinolines weren’t the only underthings causing grievous bodily harm, corsets were also more than happy to fuck women’s bodies up, both internally and externally!

You know she is in so much pain

The great great great grandmother of the corset we know today is the cote; a tightly laced bodice worn by medieval women to acquire an hourglass silhouette (gotta get them child birthing hips!)

Around the 16^th century people start using stiffening materials like wood, whalebone and steel to create a much more tighter waist than would be possible with just lacing; and thus the corset is born!!

The corsets design was not just to create a waspish waist, but also to lift the boobs, emphasis the hips and create a rod straight posture.

For the next few centuries women would be squidged, pulled and generally forced by any means into tighter and tighter corsets. With the Victorians desperate to make the average 28 inch waist, a frankly terrifying 16 inches.

Prince is not here for your mangled ribs

It’s the Victorian corset that remains the most iconic. In this era the empire waists of earlier periods were dropped and with more emphasis now on the natural waistline the corset really came into its organ crushing stride.

On that note, lets do some myth busting :

Corsets will not kill you.

I know, they should. Corsets literally squeeze your organs and shuffles them about…but it turns out that bodies are pretty hardy and the typical tightly laced corsets worn by Victorian women were not lethal. Uncomfy? Yes. Deadly? No.

That’s not to say I’m endorsing wearing something that mangles your skeleton, tosses your organs around and is generally the most uncomfortable thing ever. I’m just saying that it wont kill you. Which is good, because everyone in Victorian England wore corsets, even pregnancy couldn’t stop the corset! 

The Edwardian era sought to rectify some of corsetry’s comfort issues with the invention on the S bend corset (because everyone wants to wear an s bend…)

The S bend was designed to lessen the pressures on the stomach, whilst still nipping in the waist, pushing the boobs and giving a nice posture.

This was the result:

Not to be a bitch but…hahahaha no

Soon Corsets were packed full of extra enhancements to help women achieve the monumental feats that Edwardian fashion demanded from their bodies.

My personal favourite of these is the lemon cup, sort of a mix between chicken fillets and a push up bra; these small cotton cups were full of horse hair with a coiled spring attached to whalebone hidden inside. When all these elements combined the wearers breasts were buoyantly pushed up and out.

Arguably when you’re attaching springs to your tits, things have gone too far.

Edwardian fashion agreed. As designs that worked with the bodies natural curves came in, corsets starting to go out. Making room for underwear that allowed women to actually do shit, like dance, walk and move without creaking.

This was really interesting! Where can I find out more? I’d suggest checking out the V&A’s book Undressed, A History of Underwear. It’s a detailed look at their recent exhibition on underwear and contains highlights from that collection, plus it’s only a tenner, so winner all round.

Trying Lipsticks through history

For the next 4 days I’m going to try out lipsticks from history. From The 1300s to the 1940’s, I’ll be testing them all. On my lips…

Via giphy

I’ll admit to being something of a lipstick junkie, to the extent I have a small chest of drawers to hold all my lip products (yes it’s an addiction, but it’s not meth-so back off!) But it’s not just me that’s obsessed with lipstick; It’s a trend that’s endured throughout history.

Via giphy

Lipstick itself dates back to Queen Schub-ad or Puabi of Ur (if you can pronounce that then you get a gold star!) who was a Sumerian ruler from around 2500 B.C.

This first lipstick was more of a lip stain and was made from pretty much anything as long as it was highly pigmented and could be smeared on your lips. Popular ingredients included lead (this will be a recurring theme), fish scales, crushed rocks and dung.

Now I will do a lot of things for history, but putting lead and literal shit on my face is not one of them. So let’s call Egyptian lippy a write off and move onto the next stage in our tour of historic lippery:

The Middle Ages

Throughout the middle ages several European countries including France and Spain embraced rouge and lip paint; however England was having none of this – and of course by England, I mean the English church.

The church were not fans of make up on women, in fact women who wore makeup were considered ‘reincarnations of Satan’ which seems a tad strong.

But there were no actual laws banning makeup, which resulted in a very fine balancing act and the popular look of  ‘makeup that wont piss of your priest’. So slightly tinted lips-ok. Full on red lips – your going straight to hell young lady.

One of the most popular methods to get those slightly tinted but not too tinted lips was crushing up flowers petals.

There’s something weirdly romantic about the idea of flowers as lip tint. It feels very Shakespearean, very feminine, very ‘oh don’t mind me just off to go skip through this meadow wearing a daisy crown’…

If you can’t tell, I was excited to try this out.

Making the flower lip stain was really easy, all I did was get some flowers (I got tulips, because for some reason none of the shops near me sold anything but them and because tulips..two lips…get it) and then ground them up and popped them onto my lips.

The result:

Now if you are wondering, where the fuck is the flower stain? You are not alone.

If I am being generous I’ll say that it maybe stained my lips a bit. But let’s be honest – its basically one shade up from the shade your lips should probably be if you’re not dying.

Which admittedly in the Middle Ages is a win.

Would I try this again? No. The colour payoff is not worth the taste of ground flowers on your lips (which is not nice FYI); get a tinted lip balm and leave this lipstick in the dark ages where it belongs.

I give this 0.5/5.

Elizabethan 

By the Elizabethan period English people were onboard the lipstick bandwagon; led by Elizabeth l who loved a bit of lippy.

Red lip on point

Now when I say loved, I mean LOVED. Elizabeth pioneered the first known lip liner (made of red dye and plaster of paris) and was never without a slick of red lipstick.

She actually believed it to have healing powers and it is said that when she died she had lipstick an inch thick embedded onto her lips.

This is something I can get behind. As someone who lives for a matte lip, the idea of lip products burrowing into every lip crevice is neither new nor scary. If anything I was pretty pumped to try out Liz’s own lip recipe

via giphy

Elizabeth I used cochineal, gum arabic, egg whites and vermillion for her statement lip.

For those not up on their deadly beauty ingredients, Vermillion is a red pigment obtained from mercury sulphide – basically its toxic as F and I won’t be putting it on my face.

To make up for this, I used a bit more cochineal than the original recipe would have used (cochineal is a powdered insect used in most red dyes; including food dye, yum!).

So I mixed up my cochineal, gum Arabic and egg whites until I got a bright red lip…mousse…thing.

With that weird mess prepared I moved onto the lip liner, becuase as any self respecting lipstick addict will tell you, liner is the key to a flawless red lip.

I mixed some red dye (a mix of cochineal and beetroot) with plaster of Paris and once it had turned into a liquid… I realised I didn’t know what to do next.

Yup totally nailed it. via giphy

Yeeeah, I hadn’t really thought the lip liner through… but luckily the internet exists! Sadly I couldn’t find any tutorials on making plaster of paris lip pencils.

But fortunately I am a women of many skills, so I macgyvered a plaster of Paris mold using a straw and some tin foil.

Ta Da!! And my art teacher said I had no artistic talent, pffft!

Unfortunately after the lip liner had set I tried to remove it and it immediately broke into roughly 5000 pieces.

The finished product! 

I’m optimistically calling the shards of liner, ‘travel sized’

How did it apply?

I applied the lip liner first and it immediately tore the fuckity out my lips.

Don’t use plaster of Paris as a lip liner guys, just don’t. It didn’t even leave a colour, just pain.

After that ordeal I applied the lipstick/mousse.

The result: 

Defined lines for daaaaaays

Yeah….It looks like I’ve been punched in the mouth.

Also, no I didn’t have a fit whilst applying this, it just spreads out like that. It might be because of the egg white – which FYI tightens the bejesus out of the skin around your mouth! That’s why my lips are clamped shut in that picture-I couldn’t move them without cracking the skin of my lips (niiiiiice)

On the upside it’s a good red hue, I bet if you used vermillion it would be stunning and only slightly toxic!

Would you use this again?

Not if you paid me! If beauty is pain, this is straight up bullshit.

I give this -2/5 (yup we’re two in and already on negatives!)

Let’s move on…

17th century

After the clusterfuck that was Elizabethan lipstick I’ve moved across the pond to America for my next foray into historic lipstick.

America had a somewhat tempistoous relationship with lipstick during this period. In Pennsylvania it was actually legal to divorce your wife if she had worn lipstick during your courtship, was this was seen as conning a man into marriage.

Yet Americas first First Lady loved lipstick. Martha Washington even had her own unique recipe for the lippy she wore everyday. So naturally I had to check it out.

You can’t really see but Martha’s totally rocking some ‘my lips but better’ lippy.

Martha’s recipe consisted of: lard, almond oil, raisins, sugar, balsam, Alkanet root and spermaceti.

Spermaceti is a waxy substance found inside a sperm whales head, so for obvious reasons (e.g the law and ethics) I won’t be including this.

So, sans whale head goo, let’s make this lipstick!

I first had to prep the alkanet root, which is a root which naturally produces both red and purple pigments. To get the red dye I had to steep the root in vodka and water for a week. That my friends is dedication.

After this I mixed in all the other ingredients and then, as Martha would have done, ground the shit out of it.

The finished product

Mmmm, cannot wait to get this on my lips

It looked super gross, and it smelled a lot like really wet and musky bark. But at least it had a colour and didn’t contain plaster of paris or egg whites, so my lips were hopefully safe!

The result 

Colour wise there isn’t a huge payoff, but there is a clear red tint in there. Admittedly not much, but this does work as a red tint for people scared of red lips. Which makes sense. For a statement lip in a climate where half your country hates makeup, I think this is about as bold as Martha could go.

The main issue was the grease.

Now shocker…lard is greasy, but lard mixed with oil and baslm is a whole other level of greasy. The grease did make my lips shiny (win) but it also made them incredibly heavy and about 10 mins in some of the lipstick glooped onto my shirt. That’s just not what you want.

Would you use this again? 

Well first, let me share a fun fact: You may have noticed that my skin in the above image is not filtered, whilst the other images are – that is because I tried this historic lipstick out first and the lard and oil immediately broke me out to a point where I couldn’t show my skin to the internet. So to answer the question, no, no I would not use this again.

I give this 1/5 

 

The Blitz

At the start of World War Two British women were urged to keep up appearances and ensure they maintained a glamorous look at all times.

Hitler was not a fan of makeup (or anything fun) so the allies saw brightly made up women as ‘good for the morale of the nation’.

This of course meant lashings of  lipstick.

Makeup brands happily played into this, releasing fun compacts in the shape of military paraphernalia and and lipstick packaged in patriotic shades.

Look how cool!!!!!!

But then rationing hit cosmetics like it did everything else. Yet the expectation for women to retain high make up standards remained. Now one tube of lippy needed to last!

So women came up with ingenious ways to get colourd lips when they were between tubes of the good stuff. One such method was rubbing beetroot directly onto the lips for a wartime friendly lip stain.

Meet nature’s answer to MAC

Now, I was quietly confident about this. After doing a quick Pinterest search, I found tons of women who all swore by beetroot lip stains and had the cherry lips to prove it.

Admittedly these women all also used other ingredients (e.g. coconut oil) and as this isn’t strictly 1940’s, I’d just be rocking raw beetroot- but still Pinterest wouldn’t lie to me…..right?

It turns out that Pinterest is a filthy liar.

I TRUSTED YOU!!! 

Ok, fine. I might be being a tad harsh. It’s been a tough few days.

Did it stain my lips? Yes. But not in the way I was expecting it too. I was expecting a cherry pop pout and what I got was a pinky hue, which was nice… but lets be honest; thus colour is not worth the many many minutes of beetroot based effort I put in. 

The stain does last all day, which for a Land Girl on the go is ideal; no touch ups required. And the end product doesn’t look out of place with lip stains you can buy today, win!

However– it is pretty drying (not egg white drying, but still) so like the women of the 40’s you do want to keep some Vaseline on you for moisture and shine.

Would I use this again? 

It takes a while to get the colour pay off that picture shows and after about a minute of rubbing a raw beetroot onto your lips you do start to question your life choices. Not to the level of ‘why I am rubbing lard and gum arabic onto my lips’…but an existential crisis none the less.

I give this 3/5 Personally, a mini breakdown everyday is a price too high for slightly stained lips. But if you are crazy mentally strong or on rations this does the job. 

So thats the historic lipstick testing done, what did I learn?

1. Elizabethan lipstick doesn’t beat MAC. 
2. Plaster of Paris is evil incarnate 
3. Egg white is the devils own creation 
4. Petals do fuck all 
5. Lard does actually give you spots
6. It turns out progress happens for a reason and historic make up sucks.

   

   Now I’m off to drink wine and forget this ordeal ever happened!

This was really interesting, where can I find out more? I’d suggest checking out this paper on the history of lipsticks in Western Seats of Power, it’s also a Harvard paper, so you can read it and feel all fancy and intellectual.

What it means to dress like a woman

Women’s clothing is currently somewhat of a hot button issue thanks to Presidents Trumps suggestion that his female staffers ensure that when they attend work they ‘dress like a woman’

Of course this is far from the first time the way women dress has been the topic of public debate and it won’t be the last. Discussing and dissecting women’s clothing is something of a historic tradition, with many aspects of what it is to dress like a women having remained the same for centuries

Beauty is pain

To be beautiful is to be in pain, a fact anybody who has ever worn heels for more than 3 hours can attest to (time to bust out the gel heel pads every woman in Trumps office!) This is of course nothing new, from bruise inducing heavy fabrics to mantuas that required hinges to allow for the wearer to get into and out of carriages (and don’t even start on managing doors!)

Being really bloody uncomfortable goes part in parcel with being on trend. Of course these trends have also proved deadly. Yes the thing that makes you beautiful can also be a weapon. Corsets of course are famed for their organ mangling powers but crinolines were also a very lethal culprit.

so so so very deadly

Unsuspecting wearers would catch themselves on a candle and the whole crinoline would go up in flames. To make matters worse the crinolines design prevented the victim from putting the fire out themselves and any crinoline clad bystanders were also hampered down by their large skirts and rendered powerless to help- all they could do would be to watch their friend burn alive within their dress.  In 1864 one Dr Lancaster reported a supposed 2,500 people in London alone suffered this fiery end. This seems a little steep, still, I can’t think of a worse fate but please feel free to put answers on a postcard- or the comments…whatever.

This actually happened in 1861 in Philadelphia, 9 ballerinas died. Crinoline fires, argubaly worse than chip pan fires

You are what you wear 

When you read any book about the wives of Henry Vlll you will quickly realise the wives hoods are an indicator of who they are as people. Anne Boleyn with her rule breaking and saucy French hood, Jane Seymour trying to appease with her plain and ungainly English hood etc etc etc. The clothes are packaged as an integral part of these women’s core identity.

Even executions of women in this period turn into a (blood soaked) runway. Catherine Howard newly conservative but still glamorous in dark velvet, Lady Jane Grey pious in black and Mary Queen of Scots working rebellious martyr chic in crimson.  What you wear is who you are, even if that could not be further from the truth.

Margaret Cavendish, forerunner of Science Fiction, poet and one of the first philosophers to really dive into if the gender divide was maligned by her peers. She was seen as a bimbo.

Cavendish loved fashion and dressed vividly and eccentricly. Samuel Pepys described her as ‘conceited and ridiculous’ and her ‘dress so antic’. One of the greatest minds of her time overlooked, because her dress was a bit out there. But don’t worry, Pepys also describes her as a ‘good comely woman’ so everything’s fine really.

The sex is in the heel

If you are a woman then at some point you will have been told that you are dressing too provocatively (you bitch) or not provocatively enough (you bitch). Yes the debate on putting it away vs putting it out there is long and aged and something everyone apparently has some kind of stake in.

What is permitted for women to wear is somewhat cyclical. There is fine line between what is seen as ‘attractive’ and ‘slutty’ but it is a line that keeps on fucking running all over the pitch.

For example, if you were a woman in the court of Charles ll then your neckline would be low to the extent that nipple paint would be a thing in your life – go and find any portrait of a bright young thing of this court and you will find an image of a woman barely containing her breasts (if they arnt just out and roaming free) it seems like the birth place of liberal love for the raw female form, free the nipple and all that…but for the love of christ don’t show an ankle, because a naked breast was one thing but a naked ankle was seen as scandal itself.

Mistress of Charles ll, Hortense Mancini

Sexual fetishization was also ripe in Victorian England. What we now think of as the a bastion of sexual repression was actually incredibly sex obsessed (seriously Victorians LOVED their porn). But like today sexuality was a nuanced minefield.

Take our old friend the corset, it was seen as key to maintaining the ideal female figure- a waspish waist, curvy hips and breasts. A narrative was created around this fashion- it became a sign that you were a someone, feminine, rich, desirable, demure and sophisticated all at once. Yet at the same time the corset became a symbol of loose morals- it pushed up the cleavage and alluded to the hips and vagina.

Wear it…but don’t go too far. It is much the same as a short skirt – one thing on a Jennifer Lawrence type (elegant, fashionable and daring yet somehow sophisticated) and another entirely on a reality TV star (tacky, most likely taken as an up skirt shot when entering a club).

To dress like a woman is a myth and one far more complicated than I have been able to touch on in this (another time perhaps). It is an ever changing goal post built on cultural expectations and outdated stereotypes. It exists…it clearly very much still exists (hey again Mr President!) but it doesn’t have to be something we adhere to. We can look at history and notice the rule breakers, the women that created their own fashions and lived how they choose – what I’m saying is, don’t feel like you have to wear heels and a pencil skirt to the office because someone berk in a shit wig tells you too.