Victims Of Fashion , In Print; The Crinoline Wars

Been looking into how not-glamorous our ancestors outlines were considered by a lot of the popultion for quite awhile It's like debunking myth.

1863, young girl lacerated in the stomach by a sprung crinoline, dying, could only say " Take me to my mother ". I'm generally impressed with Demorest's companies at the time because this couple employed women at living wages and paid equal wages to black workers. But- also ran ads for children's crinoline at a time when this controversy was huge.

crin 63 take me to my mother.jpg

crin 63 take me to my mother2.jpg
 
It just occurred to me, when pulling this thread back up that a woman could also be wearing a green dress over her crinoline- a twofer as far as death by fashion. No idea why the stuff remained on the market for another 60 years- Paris Green killed people too. You know how poor, wonderful Marie Tepe committed suicide by drinking pain? It was Paris Green- that dreck had arsenic in it ( like this thread was dreary enough ).

Used to dye everything from book covers to wall paper to fabric to fake flowers, really, that green sickened unknown numbers and killed some. There's a story of a father and 2 kids who died sitting in a very room warm where the new wallpaper had a lot of Paris Green. It's still a hazard- renovating old houses can be unexpectedly dangerous.
 
Came back here to bring up Queen Victoria's probable contribution to the demise of crinolines/hoops. She issued a flat veto, forbidding them for her household and drawing attention to the dangers of this fashion. We were committed royal watchers 150 years ago, even more so than today ( if possible ). We mostly owe our whole ' white wedding ' tradition to her and she chose white because she wished to include a favorite piece of Brussels lace when creating her dress. If Victoria did it, poof, we all did.
 
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