How Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion
The deadly diseaseand later efforts to control itinfluenced trends for decades
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-tuberculosis-shaped-victorian-fashion-180959029/?no-ist
"Marie Duplessis, French courtesan and Parisian celebrity, was a striking Victorian beauty. In her best-known portrait, by Édouard Viénot, her glossy black hair frames a beautiful, oval face with sparkling eyes and ivory skin. But Duplessis fame was short-lived. Like Violetta, the protagonist in Giuseppe Verdis opera La Traviata whose tale Duplessis inspired, Duplessis was afflicted with tuberculosis, which killed her in 1847 at the age of 23.
By the mid-1800s, tuberculosis had reached epidemic levels in Europe and the United States. The disease, now known to be highly infectious, attacks the lungs and damages other organs. Before the advent of antibiotics, its victims slowly wasted away, becoming pale and thin before finally dying of what was then known as consumption.
The Victorians romanticized the disease and the effects it caused in the gradual build to death. For decades, many beauty standards emulated or highlighted these effects. And as scientists gained greater understanding of the disease and how it was spread, the disease continued to keep its hold on fashion.
Between 1780 and 1850, there is an increasing aestheticization of tuberculosis that becomes entwined with feminine beauty, says Carolyn Day, an assistant professor of history at Furman University in South Carolina and author of the forthcoming book Consumptive Chic: A History of Fashion, Beauty and Disease, which explores how tuberculosis impacted early 19th century British fashion and perceptions of beauty.
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A good read, indeed.
niyad
(113,860 posts)procon
(15,805 posts)to conceal the pox scars left on both men and women who survived the plague. The heavy use of lead based creams also caused baldness, so it became fashionable for the aristocracy to shave their hairline back to make it smooth and look as if their foreheads were larger. Red lead was used to make a vivid rouge to redden the lips and cheeks. White skin became fashionable, but there was an unfortunate side effect with a high incidence of lead-poisoning.
Portraits of Queen Elizabeth show her with white skin, and the long forehead from hair loss, and her red rose-bud shaped lips.
Strange, the things we do for fashion.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Of course, we still do bizarre things for fashion. Luckily, I'm too old to care, now!
procon
(15,805 posts)marble falls
(57,479 posts)the birth of my daughter!
mcar
(42,465 posts)Thanks!