While getting dressed in the dayspring can seem like a hassle ( jammies are so much more comfortable ) , few of us worry about our clothes leading to our death . That was n’t the case during the puritanical era , when fashionable cloth and accessory sometimes came at cracking price for both Godhead and wearer . InFashion Victims : The Dangers of Dress Past and Present , Alison Matthews David , a prof in the School of Fashion at Ryerson University in Toronto , outlines the many toxic , inflammable , and otherwise extremely hazardous components of high style during the 19th one C . Here are a few of the speculative offenders .
1. Poisonous Dyes
Before the 1780s , green was a guileful colour to create on wearing apparel , and needlewoman depend on a compounding of chickenhearted and blue dyes to produce the chromaticity . But in the tardy 1770s a Swedish / German chemist named Carl Wilhelm Scheele invented a new green paint by mixing K and white arsenic on a solution of copper vituperation . The paint was dubbedScheele ’s Green , and laterParis Green , among other names , and it became a huge esthesis , used to colorwalls , house painting , and fabric as well as candles , candies , food wrappers , and even child ’s toy . Not surprisingly , it also caused sores , scab , and damaged tissue , as well as sickness , colic , diarrhea , and constant vexation .
Although fashionable woman wear out arsenic - dye fabrics — evenQueen Victoriawas depicted in one — its wellness effect were worst among the textile and other workers who produce the clothes and often labored in warm , arsenic - tincture rooms mean solar day after day . ( Some scholarly person haveeven theorizedthat Napoleon might have been poison by the arsenic - tied wallpaper hung in his St. Helena home . )
Arsenical dye were also a popular addition to artificial flowers and leaf , which intend they were frequently pinned to clothes or fasten on heads . In the 1860s , a composition commission by the Ladies ’ Sanitary Association found that the average headdress contained enough ratsbane to poison 20 people . TheBritish Medical Journalwrote of the green - clad Victorian woman : “ She in reality post in her skirts poison enough to slay the whole of the admirers she may conform to with in half a 12 testis - rooms . ” Despite repeated warnings in the press , and from Dr. and scientists , the Victorians seemed in lovemaking with emerald green arsenic dyestuff ; ironically , they acted like a reminder of the nature then fleetly being lost to industrial enterprise , David says .
2. Pestilential Fabrics
Soldiers of the Victorian geological era ( and before ) were blight by dirt ball and other body parasites that carried baneful disease such as typhus and trench fever . But soldier were n’t the only victim of disease contain via framework — even the wealthy sometimes outwear clothing that was made or clean by the sick in sweatshops or tenement house , and which fan out disease as a result . According to David , the daughter of Victorian Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel died after her ride substance abuse , give to her by her founding father as a natural endowment , was finish in the sign of a poor sempstress who had used it to cover her tired of hubby as he dwell shudder with typhus - make iciness . Peel ’s girl sign on typhus after wearing the garment , and died on the eve of her wedding .
Women also care about their annulus sweep up through the ooze and excretory product of city streets , where bacteria was overabundant , and some wore especial skirt - fasteners to keep them up from the gunk . The poor , who often tire secondhand clothes , endure from smallpox and other diseases disperse by cloth that was recycled without being properly wash out .
3. Flowing Skirts
Giant , rippled , crinoline - supported skirts may have been o.k. for madam of leisure time , but they were n’t a large combination with industrial machinery . According to David , one mill in Lancashire post a preindication in 1860 prohibit the “ present surly fashion of hoop , or CRINOLINE , as it is called ” as being “ quite unfitted for the work of our Factories . ” The word of advice was a wise one : In at least one publish berth , a girl was caught by her hoopskirt and dragged under the mechanically skillful printing pressing . The girl was reportedly “ very slim ” and escaped unscathed , but the foreman shun the skirts anyway . Long , declamatory , or draped skirts were also an inauspicious combination with pusher and animals .
4. Flammable Fabrics
The feed white cotton plant so popular in the late 18th and 19th one C had danger to both maker and wearer : It was produced with often - brute slave confinement on orchard , and it was also more flammable than the grueling silks and fleece favored by the wealthy in the former centuries . One type of cotton fiber lace was especially problematic : In 1809 John Heathcoat patented a car that made the first machine - wander silk and cotton pillow “ lace ” or bobbinet , now better jazz as tulle , which could overhear fire in an New York minute . The tulle was frequently layered , to add volume and even off for its sheerness , and tighten with extremely combustible starch . Ballerinas were particularly at risk : British ballerina Clara Webster died in 1844 when her dress catch fire at London ’s Drury Lane theatre after her skirt do too close to recessed lights onstage .
But performer were n’t the only ones in hazard : Even the average charwoman wearing the then - pop tortuous crinolines was at risk of setting herself ablaze . And the “ flannelette ” ( plain cotton fiber brush to make a nap and resemble wool flannel ) so pop for nightshirt and undergarments was particularly combustible if attain with a stray spark or the flame of a household candela . So many nestling burn in house fortuity that one company came out with a specially treated flannelette called Non - Flam , advertised as being “ strong’y recommended by Coroners . ”
5. Arsenic-Ridden Taxidermy
Dead birdswere a popular improver to ladies ’ hats in the 19th 100 . According to David , “ fashion in millinery killed millions of little songbirds and premise danger that may still make some historic cleaning lady ’s hat harmful to humans today . ”
But it was n’t the bird that were the problem — it was the arsenic used on them . animal stuffer of the daytime used arsenic - laced soaps and other products to preserve birds and other animate being . In some cases , entire birds — one or several — were mounted on hats . Some tight-laced fashion commentator decried the drill , though not because of the ratsbane involved . One Mrs. Haweis , a author on dress and stunner , began an 1887 diatribe against “ dash birds ” with the sentence : “ A remains is never a really pleasant ornament . ”
6. Mercury
No upper - category man of the Victorian earned run average was terminated without his lid , but many of those hat were made with hydrargyrum . As David explain , “ Although its noxious effects were known , it was the cheapest and most effective way to deform fuddled , low - grade fur from lapin and hare into pliable felt . ” Mercury apply animal fur its smooth , lustrous , matte texture , but that velvety looking occur at a high price — mercury is an extremely grave kernel .
Mercury can speedily enter the organic structure through the hide or the air , and cause a image of horrifying health consequence . hatmaker were known to hurt from turmoil , abdominal muscle spasm , trembling , paralysis , generative trouble , and more . ( A chemistry professor studying toxic exposure at Dartmouth College , Karen Wetterhahn , pall in 1996 after pour forth just a few drops of a supertoxic type of mercury on her glove . ) To make matter worse , hatters who drank while they worked ( not an uncommon practice ) only hastened mercury ’s burden by cramp the liver ’s power to excrete it . While scholar still debate whether Lewis Carroll ’s “ mad milliner ” was meant to show the effects of mercury poisoning , his trembling limbs and wacky actor’s line seem to match the visor .
7. Lead
Pallor was by all odds in during the Victorian era , and a facial expression spackled with lead blank paint was long favored by stylish fair sex . Lead had been a democratic ingredient in cosmetic for century , David spell , because it “ made colouring even and opaque and create a suitable ‘ sinlessness ’ that call for both exemption from hard outside labor and racial purity . ” One of the most popular lead - laced cosmetic products was called Laird ’s Bloom of Youth ; in 1869 , one of the founders of the American Medical Association treated three young cleaning lady who had been using the product and temporarily lost full use of their bridge player and carpus as a result . ( The doctor described the circumstance as “ lead palsy , ” although today we call it wrist joint drop or radial nerve paralysis , which can be because of lead poisoning . ) One of the woman ’s hands was said to be “ wasted to a skeleton . ”
This clause was republished in 2019 .
