10 Modern Fashion Trends And Their Fascinating Histories
Did you ever notice that the buttons on a shirt are on opposite sides for men and women? Curious to find out how World War II changed women's shaving habits? Ever thought about why men stopped wearing high heels? And what makes the fourth finger on our left hand the "ring finger"?.
These arent just random happenings or frivolous decisions by fashion magazines.
Sometimes, war or other serious considerations influenced how we dress.
In fact, there is a fascinating history behind many modern fashion trends.
Read on to get the scoop behind some of our more puzzling style choices.
10 Why Women Shave Their Legs.
Women have not always shaved their legs.
Indeed, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who was a trendsetter of her time, women weren't expected to remove body hair.
Instead, the fashion police of that era dictated that women ought to remove eyebrows and hair from their foreheads to make their faces appear longer.
But leg hair? No need to shave.
So why did that change?.
The simple answer is World War II.
During the war, the US experienced a stockings shortage as the government redirected the use of nylon from stockings to war parachutes.
For women, the nylon shortage meant having to bare their legs in public.
To be deemed socially acceptable, women began to shave their legs.
After the war, as skirts became shorter, the trend stuck around.
9 Why Girls Wear Pink And Boys Wear Blue.
We have all been there.
At a baby shower, the color of everything—from the tablecloths to the napkins—corresponds to the gender of the baby.
Blue is for boys, and pink is for girls.
But things were not always this way.
For centuries, children younger than six mostly wore flowing white dresses according to University of Maryland historian Jo B.
Paoletti, who wrote Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America.
"White cotton can be bleached," she says, which made it a practical choice.
In the 1900s, colors began to be used as gender signifiers.
But the colors did not mean what they do now.
For instance, a June 1918 article from a popular fashion magazine declared:.
"The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys and blue for the girls.
The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.".
Still, Paoletti says that these trends weren't particularly widespread.
Around 1985, that all changed with the rise of prenatal testing, which allowed parents to determine the gender of the child.
As expectant parents learned the sex of their babies, they began to shop for "girl" or "boy" merchandise.
Retailers noticed and individualized clothing to increase their sales.
For the most part, this trend appears to have stuck.
But Paoletti warns that it presents challenges for children who do not conform to the colors assigned to their gender.
8 Why Women's And Men's Buttons Are On Opposite Sides.
Odds are you own a button-up shirt.
Take a look at which side the buttons are on.
If you're a man, chances are the buttons are on the right.
If you're a woman, you'll likely find your buttons on the left.
There's an interesting historical reason for this.
Melanie M.
Moore, who created women's blouse brand Elizabeth & Clarke, explains: "When buttons were invented in the 13th century, they were, like most new technology, very expensive.
[ . . . ] Wealthy women back then did not dress themselves—their lady's maid did.
Since most people were right-handed, this made it easier for someone standing across from you to button your dress.".
As for men's shirts, fashion historian Chloe Chapin traces the fashion quirk to the military.
"Access to a weapon . . . practically trumped everything," she says, noting that a firearm tucked inside a shirt would be easier to reach from the dominant side.
7 Why Men Stopped Wearing High Heels.
For generations, a pair of high heels has signaled feminine beauty.
But before then, high heels were a staple in men's closets.
Elizabeth Semmelhack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto says, "The high heel was worn for centuries throughout the Near East as a form of riding footwear.
[ . . . ] When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively.".
About the 15th century, when Persian-European cultural exchange heightened, European aristocrats adopted high-heeled shoes as a symbol of their wealth.
According to Semmelhack, elites have always used impractical clothing to showcase their privileged status.
Fast-forward to the Enlightenment era, which ostensibly brought with it an appreciation for the practical, and men began to renounce the impractical high heel.
But sexism prohibited women from being viewed as rational beings.
Semmelhack suggests that the desirability of women was then seen in terms of irrational style choices like the high heel.
6 Why We Paint Our Nails.
If you thought the manicure was a new phenomenon, you would be wrong.
Did you know that the world's oldest manicure set, made from solid gold dating to 3200 BC, is over 5,000 years old? The ancient Babylonians, who created that set, were known to have loved caring for their nails.
Ming Dynasty elites were also fans of painted nails, using a mixture of egg whites, gelatin, and rubber to dye their nails crimson and black.
In England, Elizabeth I, a fashion icon of her day, was widely admired for her manicured nails and beautiful hands.
Suzanne Shapiro, a researcher at The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, says that long fingernails are impractical for hard labor, so they have tended to signal an elite social status.
But Shapiro admits that nail trends come and go.
During the 1920s and 30s, the French manicure was in.
However, during the 1960s, women preferred a more natural look and rarely painted their nails.
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