These days, most fashions are all about comfort. Not so with these historical trends!
• The crinoline was worn in the 1800s by Victorian women. This bell-shaped petticoat undergarment was originally made of linen stiffened with horsehair in order to spread a skirt wider. The linen crinolines transitioned into cane and whalebone, and finally, the steel-hooped cage crinoline, which would provide a skirt circumference of about 6 yards (5.5 m), with a diameter of 6 feet. It wasn’t unusual for petticoats to weigh 30 lbs. In 1859, a New York factory employee 1,000 girls, who fabricated 300,000 yards (270,000 m) of steel wire every week to produce up to 4,000 crinoline frames a day. Another New York factory used a ton of steel each week for the manufacturing. The sheer size of skirts presented a danger to their wearers, with 19 deaths occurring in a two-month period. One young lady died after her large skirt caught fire when embers from the fireplace sparked a blaze.
• In order to achieve the smallest possible waist, women (and sometimes men!) wore tight, rigid corsets, laced tightly with up to 50 laces. Whalebone stays further reshaped the body, later replaced by steel stays. These uncomfortable undergarments were responsible for depleted lung volume and changes in breathing, even to the point of fainting. Women were unable to raise their arms above their heads. Designers touted the benefits to posture of the inflexible corset, since it was impossible to slouch. Medical journals of the late 1800s published articles against corsets, including an 1890 article, “Death from Tight Lacing,” in which doctors blamed the garment for deformity to the ribs, damage to internal organs, birth defects, and miscarriages. During World War I, the U.S. War Board asked for the elimination of corsets in order to free up steel for war production. The result was the conservation of 28,000 tons of metal, enough to build two battleships.
• Another fashion that prevented a woman from raising her arms was the gigot sleeve, or leg o’mutton sleeve, as it was commonly called. The dresses of 19th-century women had extremely full puffed sleeves that ballooned at the shoulders, then tapered down the arm to a tight cuff. In order to obtain the puffy shape, padding of muslin or whalebone hoops were inserted into the sleeve. Sometimes the sleeves were so large, it was impossible to go through a doorway without turning sideways.
• The bustle prevented a woman from sitting back in a chair. A large amount of fabric gathered at the rear of a dress created a shelf-like extension, which was puffed up with large cushions filled with straw or horsehair, just above a woman’s posterior. Slang terms for the bustle were “bum rolls,” “bearers,” and “cork rumps.”
• The uncomfortable hobble skirt came along in the 1910s. A French designer debuted his creation of a long, close-fitting skirt, so narrow at the ankles that it forced women to take tiny little steps, “hobbling” along in the latest style. The fashion was deemed dangerous as one misstep could result in tripping, falling, and even broken bones.
• TIME magazine may have named it the top fashion statement of 2010, but Lady Gaga’s was a smelly creation. In 2010, the famous singer wore a dress to the MTV Video Music Awards fashioned entirely out of raw beef, specifically flank steak from the designer’s family butcher, sewn onto a corset. She complemented the look with high heel shoes encased in slivers of meat and tied with butcher’s twine. The dress went on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who had paid $6,000 to a taxidermist to preserve the dress as a type of jerky. Since 2019, the dress has been on display at the Haus of Gaga museum in Las Vegas’ Park MGM casino.