Womens Frontier Fashion in 1850 Wyoming

Did you ever notice that the buttons on a shirt are on contrary sides for men and women? Curious to find out how World State of war II changed women'south shaving habits? Always thought virtually why men stopped wearing high heels? And what makes the fourth finger on our left hand the "ring finger"?

These aren't only random happenings or frivolous decisions by fashion magazines. Sometimes, war or other serious considerations influenced how we dress. In fact, in that location is a fascinating history behind many mod way trends. Read on to get the scoop behind some of our more puzzling mode choices.

ten Why Women Shave Their Legs

Women take not e'er shaved their legs. Indeed, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who was a trendsetter of her fourth dimension, women weren't expected to remove torso hair. Instead, the fashion constabulary of that era dictated that women ought to remove eyebrows and hair from their foreheads to make their faces announced longer. But leg hair? No need to shave.

So why did that change?

The unproblematic answer is Globe War Two. During the state of war, the United states of america experienced a stockings shortage as the authorities redirected the employ 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. Later the war, every bit skirts became shorter, the trend stuck effectually.^[1]

9 Why Girls Article of clothing 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 infant. Blue is for boys, and pink is for girls. But things were non always this way.

For centuries, children younger than 6 generally 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 tin be bleached," she says, which fabricated it a applied choice.

In the 1900s, colors began to be used as gender signifiers. But the colors did not hateful what they exercise now. For instance, a June 1918 commodity from a pop style mag declared:

"The generally accepted dominion is pinkish for the boys and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blueish, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."^[2]

Yet, Paoletti says that these trends weren't especially widespread.

Around 1985, that all changed with the rise of prenatal testing, which immune parents to determine the gender of the kid. Every bit expectant parents learned the sex of their babies, they began to shop for "daughter" or "boy" merchandise. Retailers noticed and individualized clothing to increment their sales.

For the virtually function, this tendency appears to take stuck. Only Paoletti warns that information technology presents challenges for children who practise not conform to the colors assigned to their gender.

8 Why Women's And Men'due south Buttons Are On Opposite Sides

Odds are you own a push button-up shirt. Take a wait at which side the buttons are on. If you're a homo, chances are the buttons are on the right. If you're a adult female, you'll likely find your buttons on the left.

In that location'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 applied science, very expensive. [ . . . ] Wealthy women back then did not wearing apparel themselves—their lady'due south maid did. Since nearly people were correct-handed, this made it easier for someone continuing across from y'all to button your dress."^[3]

As for men'southward shirts, fashion historian Chloe Chapin traces the fashion quirk to the military. "Admission to a weapon . . . practically trumped everything," she says, noting that a firearm tucked inside a shirt would exist easier to reach from the dominant side.

7 Why Men Stopped Wearing High Heels

For generations, a pair of high heels has signaled feminine dazzler. Simply 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 class 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 pointer more than effectively."^[4]

Nigh the 15th century, when Persian-European cultural exchange heightened, European aristocrats adopted high-heeled shoes as a symbol of their wealth. Co-ordinate to Semmelhack, elites take 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 beingness viewed as rational beings. Semmelhack suggests that the desirability of women was then seen in terms of irrational manner choices like the high heel.

6 Why We Paint Our Nails

If you lot thought the manicure was a new phenomenon, you would be incorrect. Did yous know that the globe'due south oldest manicure ready, made from solid aureate dating to 3200 BC, is over 5,000 years quondam? The ancient Babylonians, who created that set, were known to take loved caring for their nails.

Ming Dynasty elites were also fans of painted nails, using a mixture of egg whites, gelatin, and condom to dye their nails crimson and black. In England, Elizabeth I, a mode icon of her twenty-four hours, was widely admired for her manicured nails and beautiful hands.^[5]

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 take tended to point an elite social status.

But Shapiro admits that nail trends come and go. During the 1920s and '30s, the French manicure was in. Withal, during the 1960s, women preferred a more natural look and rarely painted their nails.

5 Why Long Pilus Became A Thing For Women

While hair trends have fallen in and out of mode, one thing across cultures and millennia has remained fairly abiding: the expectation that women would have long hair. We've seen it from the depiction of a long-haired Aphrodite to St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, in which he wrote, "If a adult female has long hair, it is a glory to her."

Kurt Stenn, author of Hair: A Human History, says that women near always accept longer hair than men. Merely why?

According to Stenn, a quondam professor of pathology and dermatology at Yale, pilus is highly communicative. Information technology sends messages near sexuality, religious behavior, and ability. In particular, he believes that long hair can communicate health and wealth.

"To take long hair, you accept to exist healthy," Stenn says. "You have to eat well, have no diseases, no infectious organisms, you take to take expert rest and exercise." He adds, "To have long hair, yous take to have your needs in life taken care of, which implies y'all have the wealth to exercise information technology."^[6]

4 Why Some People Sag Their Pants

In 2014, the Ocala, Florida, city quango passed an ordinance banning the practice of sagging (wearing one'due south pants below the waistline or, in some cases, the buttocks) on urban center-endemic belongings. An offender would receive a $500 fine or vi months in jail.

Similar bans have surfaced from New Bailiwick of jersey to Tennessee. The rationale behind this sort of legislation usually goes something like this: Sagging represents a unsafe lack of cocky-respect and an embrace of gang civilization. It is a symbol of moral decline.

Simply how did sagging originate?

According to University of Massachusetts historian Tanisha C. Ford, the origins of sagging tin can't be definitively traced. But in that location are 2 leading theories. The first is that inmates, prohibited from wearing belts in prison house, oftentimes sagged their uniforms. Then they connected the style after returning home. The second theory is that convicts wore their pants low as a means of letting other prisoners know they were sexually available.^[7]

iii Why We Wear Wedding Bands On The 'Ring Finger'

"With this ring, I thee wednesday." The ring is slipped onto the quaternary finger of the left hand, and in that location you have information technology—a bride and groom! Just have you lot ever asked yourself why nosotros sideslip our hymeneals bands onto the "ring finger"?

The tradition tin exist traced back to Roman times. The Romans believed that a vein ran direct from the middle to the ring finger. They named information technology the vena amoris ("vein of dear"). Naturally, they thought it'd be fitting to place one's wedding band on that finger. Quite romantic!

Past the way, modern science has proven that all fingers have a vein connectedness to our hearts.^[8]

2 Why Men Clothing Ties

Ties. They don't keep us warm, aren't practical, and are often uncomfortable. So why do men wear them?

Nigh neckwear historians concord that the necktie grew in prominence around the time of the Thirty Years' War in the 1600s. To fight the state of war, King Louis Thirteen employed Croatian mercenaries who wore a piece of cloth around their necks.

While these early on neckties were largely functional—they tied the tops of their jackets—King Louis Thirteen liked them as sartorial adornments. Indeed, he fabricated these early neckties mandatory dress for formal gatherings and named them after the Croatian mercenaries: cravate. To this day, that ways necktie in France.

Curiously, Croatia celebrates national Cravat Twenty-four hours every October xviii. In 2003, they commemorated the vacation by tying an 808-meter (two,650 ft) tie around the celebrated Roman amphitheater in Pula.^[nine]

i Why Women Shave Their Armpits

Women and men accept had armpit hair for millennia. So why exercise roughly 95 percent of women shave or wax their underarms? Who woke up one solar day and decided that women with armpit pilus are unsightly?

Well, nosotros tin can thank a 1915 Harper's Boutique advertisement for that. Earlier then, women with bushy pits were the norm. But the advertising told women that mod dancing and sleeveless dresses were the side by side big thing and that "objectionable pilus" was out. The ad featured a photograph of a young woman in a sleeveless dress. Her artillery were arched over her caput, revealing perfectly articulate armpits.

Within a few years and after an onslaught of advertisements promoting the trend, hairless armpits were a matter and natural pilus was something embarrassing. Indeed, a 2013 Arizona State University study measured disgust triggered by women with armpit pilus. It yielded responses like: "I recollect women who don't shave are a little gross."^[10]

Only natural, hairy pits might be making a comeback. One recent written report found that 1 in iv millennial women do not shave or wax their pits.

Oscar is a Master of Public Policy student at the University of Oxford. He is originally from Los Angeles, California.

Share this post