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    Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves, and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History
    Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves, and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History
    Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves, and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History
    Ebook57 pages20 minutes

    Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves, and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History

    By Jennifer Wright

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Isadora Duncan was Red
    Put on a scarf; popped off her head
    Fashion is silly, thought Stein
    It may tear your head from your spine
     
    A darkly comic book about some surprisingly lethal garments. Featuring stories like the untimely demise of dancer Isadora Duncan caused by her signature red scarf and the bloody riot that greeted the appearance of the first top hat, among many others, these bite-size accounts will frighten and delight. Killer Fashion includes over twenty of these short tales along with beautiful full-page illustrations. Both morbid and humorous, this book will appeal to fans of Edward Gorey and dark historical trivia.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAndrews McMeel Publishing
    Release dateNov 21, 2017
    ISBN9781449489076
    Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves, and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History
    Author

    Jennifer Wright

    Jennifer Wright is the author of six pop history books, most recently Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist. She has written for the New York Times, the New York Post and the New York Observer. Despite that, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Daniel Kibblesmith, and daughter. Her break-up days are hopefully behind her, but she would still split a pint of ice cream with you.

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    Reviews for Killer Fashion

    4/5

    22 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Fun, educational, and quirky with delightful illustrations and lovely little poetic quips.
    • 4/5
      Killer Fashion from Jennifer Wright is a fun, attractive, and informative little book. Like many others I would have enjoyed a little more though I am not sure what type of more. This isn't meant to be a collection of in-depth essays on each fashion item so I don't think she needed to go deeper. While I would have liked more items I also don't know how well one can keep coming up with quirky little verses for too many more items. So I guess I may be wishing for something that could easily have made the book less enjoyable. The informative part of the book is as much fun as the verse and the drawings. A lot of the information isn't so much completely new (though quite a bit is) but in that category of information which contains all the interesting things we once read or heard but have since forgotten about. Having these types of tidbits brought up is almost like a nostalgic event each time. I actually called an old friend because one entry reminded me of a course where the topic was discussed and a friend and I had chatted about it over coffee later in the day. I had since forgotten the information and lost touch with my friend. Now I have touched base with an old friend thanks to a fun little entry in this book.I would recommend this to readers who like short fun books of, for lack of a better term, trivia. If you're the inquisitive type you may find yourself looking up some additional details, that is not a bad thing, I don't think this book was intended to be a comprehensive source for such information so it is not a weakness of the book that you will need to actually look something up for yourself beyond the basic description given here. In fact, some of us consider such "work" part of the fun of trivia type books. I also think this would make an ideal gift for anyone into either such books or into fashion.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

    Book preview

    Killer Fashion - Jennifer Wright

    1.png

    Artificial Silk

    In 1932, the Archbishop of Canterbury rejoiced, One of the main agents in the taming of the East End has been artificial silk. ¹ Indeed, the invention of the mock silk fabric meant that lower-class women could dress like elegant ladies at a fraction of the price. The Archbishop of Canterbury did not mention, however, that a few of these finely attired women could potentially go fashionably up in flames. As fashion historian Alison Matthews David noted, the material, which Comte Hilaire de Chardonnet created in the 1890s, was made by turning mulberry leaves into a cellulose pulp with the addition of extremely combustible nitric acid. The combination caused multiple explosions at Chardonnet’s workshop. This surely wasn’t reassuring for women who might come in contact with any open flames while wearing their highly flammable artificial silk garments. Not everyone saw this as a disadvantage. One newspaper commented, One only has to give a dress of Chardonnet silk to your mother-in-law, she approaches the fire, she burns, and you are rid of her. ²

    Yes, artificial silk was nice

    for looking fine at half the price,

    but if a candle’s flame you caught,

    you’d find it getting far too hot.

    Asbestos

    Many of the clothes responsible for killing people did so because they were so flammable that the briefest of contact with any flame might transform them from garments into bonfires. But not cloth made of asbestos! Ancient

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