r/history • u/spark8000 • 19d ago
What are some hilarious or bizarre trends, styles, or fashions throughout history? Discussion/Question
There are some really unique trends and styles out there. The ones that really come to mind for me include:
- English high society loved to imitate and copy Alexandra, then Princess of Wales, in the 19th century. After she procured a limp from a bout with rheumatism, people began to adopt a fake limp as a fashion trend.
- It was reported that Queen Elizabeth had rotten and black teeth from all the sweets she ate. As sugar was a luxury, people would go on to copy this look by painting their teeth black to show off all the sugar they could afford.
- Codpieces... just look that up.
- I particularly love the "Macaroni" style from the famous "Yankee Doodle" rhyme. It's based in reality, a fashion trend in the 1760's saw aristocratic men dawning massive wigs topped with a feather or comically small hat.
I'm wondering what other obscure or hilarious trends or fashions have existed throughout history? Particularly those that are hard to find with a simple google search.
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u/Blue_Baron6451 19d ago
In the early medieval era we have records of cloak pins being super long, like some comparable to the length of swords and more.
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u/Bentresh 19d ago
Impractically long pins are attested in ancient history as well. Megan Cifarelli wrote an excellent article on the topic, "Costly Choices: Signaling Theory and Dress in Period IVb at Hasanlu, Iran."
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u/spark8000 19d ago
That sounds very impractical, wonder what gave them that idea.
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u/Blue_Baron6451 19d ago
There are some ideas, probably just display of wealth and power. Some think it was an improvised weapon, who knows but it would of been hilarious to see an angry shirt ginger with an Irish Accent speaking old English and tripping over this super long cloak pin
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u/Actually_a_Patrick 18d ago
Sometimes the pins were intended to be used as a weapon because in some areas carrying a blade over a certain length was fine.
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u/aguidom 18d ago
Nowadays just a fruit anyone can buy on the supermarket, during the 17th and especially 18th century pineapples were considered to be a luxury item in Europe. Not for eating but to decorate your house as you would do with a vase or a painting. Having even one was a sign of being well-off and rich, and both kings/queens and other people from the elite would try to get their hands on at least one pineapple whenever they organized a party, just to show it off the same way you'd do with a new sports car. Their appearance was considered otherworldly and to be among the best things to give as a gift.
Another one are potatoes, brought from the Americas by the Spanish, they were first used in gardens by anyone that could afford them since Europeans liked the white flowers that sprouted from the potatoes, and it was a must for any high-class garden. Later they realized how nutritious, durable and adaptable potatoes were and helped to kick-off the population boom that Europe had from the 18th century onwards.
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u/Actually_a_Patrick 18d ago
This is one of my favorites and why I like to bring a pineapple as a gift when visiting someone.
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u/theangelok 17d ago
This reminded me of something I read recently.
In 1968 Pakistan's foreign minister gave a box of mangoes as a gift to Mao. And because Mao didn't like fruit, he regifted these mangoes as a reward to a group of Chinese factory workers who had put an end to the fighting between competing Red Guard factions. The workers interpreted this gift as a symbol that the Cultural Revolution had finally ended, and a sign of respect for the working class.
And this in turn started China's short-lived mango craze. First the workers tried to preserve the mangoes in formaldehyde, then they made wax replicas of the mangoes, and gave these replicas to the workers who were expected to treat it with reverence. Parades were held for the mangoes. People performed rituals that imitated Buddhist, and Daoist traditions, workers bowed to mangoes, and so on.
But this weird cult didn't last very long. After little more than a year it ended.
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u/kazkh 15d ago
Did you read this in Frank Dikotter’s book on the cultural revolution?
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u/thefringeseanmachine 19d ago
in 18th century Britain, it was considered fancy to have a hermit living on your estate. and not the crab variety. like, the human variety.
the owner would build a little hovel (a "hermitage," if you will. and should.) and pay some guy to live in it. they wouldn't bathe, recreate, or do anything fun - instead spending their days in quiet meditation. (or that was the idea, at least). guests walking the estate could approach the hermit and pick up little nuggets of spiritual wisdom.
Mentalfloss has a great history of the trend, which I highly recommend.
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u/Havamar 18d ago
its like having a pet tortoise
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u/donkey_OT 18d ago
Due to its lifespan, you don't have the tortoise - they have you. That's the sort of pearl I could be giving your guests if you hire me as your new hermit
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u/spark8000 18d ago
Wow. I understand the appeal, wanting your own “old simple yet wise man” character archetype around. But this is pretty out there lol
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u/WholesomeWhitney 18d ago
Welcome to ~18th century~ aristocratic Britain I guess
Lol this makes me want to read more about their zany antics
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u/Vio_ 18d ago
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u/theknightwho 18d ago
Follies are actually quite cool, because you see them as you drive around. They’re often placed quite prominently, like on the tops of hills overlooking towns and so on.
I’m sure they were very tacky when first built, but now they’re historic in their own right.
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u/RotaryGoose 18d ago
Also, I had it explained to me that they’re from a time when people didn’t bloody go anywhere! If you lived in some giant country estate, the next town could be a days uncomfortable ride away and a city even further.
A folly means you can say: “Darling what shall we do tomorrow?” “Take a stroll about the estate to the Temple of Jupiter for a spot of embroidery?” “Lovely”
The fashions around what these people built their follies to look like were great though. Fake ancient ruins, Greek temple in the English countryside, man made cave in the hillside, follies for every discerning gentleman 😊
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u/I_AM_AN_ASSHOLE_AMA 18d ago
If you pay attention you can notice this in some older books and things. They’ll talk about the hermit or so and so’s hermit, or the hermit that lives at this house etc.
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u/Lady_L1985 19d ago
Really long-toed shoes in the 14th-15th centuries. Some shoes got long enough that the wearer had to tie the ends to their calves to avoid tripping. There were local laws across Europe setting a maximum allowable length for those pointy toes.
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u/OliverKlozoff1269 19d ago
Mexican Pointy Boots
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u/sitquiet-donothing 19d ago
I was just thinking about those this morning! IDK why, but they always make me smile a bit when I do. I saw some singer/songwriter guy who is all the rage in Mexico City play with my local symphony and he was wearing pointy clogs! Anyway, pointy boots should be more common.
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u/alsoaprettybigdeal 19d ago
This is amazing! 🤣 I liked the one guy’s curly pointy boots!
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u/spark8000 19d ago
I heard that some got so long people would put chains on the tips attached to their knees to keep them up
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u/SinisterHummingbird 18d ago
Upper-class Heian era Japanese women were expected to pluck out their eyebrows and replaced them with smudges (Hikimayu), dye their teeth black (Ohaguro), and then wear twelve layers. It... Didn't age well.
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u/halstead987 19d ago
American college students in the 1920s, full length raccoon fur coats were all the rage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_coat
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u/SheepGoesBaaaa 18d ago
In the late nineties , alt girls wore skirts over jeans.
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u/hannahuckabee 18d ago
god i thought this was just the most.. stylish thing to exist. thankfully my brothers never let me actually leave the house in a skirt & jeans
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u/eracer68 18d ago
I was thinking JNCO jeans.
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u/Rennarjen 18d ago
The best part about those jeans was when the hems would get all waterlogged from snow and then freeze so you'd be walking around with hoop skirts on your legs
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u/wtupyo907 19d ago
It’s not super old but windbreakers - full suit pants and jacket. Why… do you want to be constantly rustling!
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u/FogPanda 19d ago
In soviet times, tracksuits were a sign of at least a little wealth, I believe. If you could afford one, you were more hip and well-off. Nowadays, it's quite the opposite. In Russia, anyway. We have pictures of us on a cruise wearing purple/green tracksuits.
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u/skyblueandblack 16d ago
If you'd ever been at an athletic event on a blustery day, you'd know. The second you leave the field to wait to go back in, you either put on the windbreakers or stand there in your lightweight uniform, freezing to death. And you'd be surprised at how well they insulate you.
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u/jmerim27 18d ago
The Turks wore high heeled boots for combat on horseback. They were so successful that it became a trend with the European aristocracy. First a men's style and then switched over to women.
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u/wallerdog 18d ago
Polish nobility adopted the Mohawk hair cut after seeing illustrations of people from North America
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u/scottyrobotty 19d ago
The sheer number of layers that women wore in in the 18th century. I really can't grasp the idea that a bunch of light clothing would keep you cool in the summer.
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u/Waitingforadragon 18d ago
I have seen re-enactors say that they are quite comfortable.
Also, I imagine if you were one of the women who was rich enough to afford all the layers, you probably were not doing anything that physical. If you could afford to sit in the shade all day under a parasol and your only exercise is a slow walk or maybe a horse back ride, then maybe you don't feel that hot anyway?
This video gives an interesting look at the construction of the dresses, including a thing called an 'ugly' which was a sort of hat addition that helped keep you cool.
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u/frumperbell 18d ago
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u/FerociousFrizzlyBear 18d ago
This is interesting, but seems flawed. Wouldn’t they need to take the temperature under the garments? If you took my temperature in the way they did in the video, I would expect to look cooler where I was wearing a thick parka than a pair of jeans, because the parka is keeping the heat in.
Also, do people really wear those “modern” clothes when it’s over 90F in the desert? Like really - tights/leggings? No way!
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u/feeling_dizzie 18d ago
Keep in mind that all those layers were natural fibers, much more breathable than the polyester blends we mostly wear today.
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u/in_finite_jest 18d ago
When you're wearing 4-6 layers, your outfit is no longer breathable no matter what it's made of.
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u/LittleLostDoll 18d ago
when im all dressed up in lolit, which is a fashion inspired by the middle/victorian summer all the layers dont bother me in the slightest. somehow its even more comfortable. idk
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u/silvercoiner69 18d ago
In Minoan artwork, bare breasted women in formal attire (think prom dress but boobs out) suddenly appear around 1500 BC. New fashion? Ritual? Who knows?
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u/Mayorfluffy 18d ago
I wonder if it is something similar like in the 1400s. Showing off a small breast to signal that you can afford to not breastfeed your child by paying a wetnurse
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u/Waitingforadragon 18d ago
I've often pondered about that and wondered if that was really what they wore or a daily basis, or if it was just for ritual, or if it was just conceptual and no one ever actually dressed like that.
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u/third-try 17d ago
Korean women went bare-breasted but carefully concealed their throats, around the start of the Twentieth Century at least.
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u/Swiggy1957 18d ago
The Crakows: shoes with Looooooooong pointy toes that were popular in the middle ages at a time when people believed that big feet meant a big wiener. Some were so long they actually had strings that held the points up to being knee high. Sadly, this old wives tail is just that: a myth. (comparing feet size to penis. {sob})
The fashion appears to have made something of a comeback, with the Botas Picudas Mexicanas. popular among many men south of the US border.
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u/cheridontllosethatno 18d ago
Men's white wigs, I know it was originally because of lice / syphilis / balding but the courts still wear them.
It really baffles me when I see it.
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u/shadow0861 19d ago
I know this isn't going to be everyone's choice, but men's powdered wigs. What was the "civilized" world thinking?
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u/lanaandray 18d ago
mens and women‘s fashion was wildly intertwined back then, powdered hairstyles and make up were used by both genders.
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u/niceguybadboy 19d ago
It's important to me that I look like a decrepid old man in every way, down to the yellow wooden teeth.
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u/Wunder-Bar75 18d ago
I’ve often wondered if this was just a practicality. Like shave your head twice a year and just wear a whig.
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u/shadow0861 18d ago
You'd think back then that they would want to get rid of lice more often than that, but your guess is as good as I've heard.
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u/Karmatic_Disorder 19d ago
The wig thing has been weird to me since I was a kid! Especially with old time masculinity ideals! Wigs just seems out of place like someone went back in time, stepped on a twig and *poof* dudes wearing wigs and powder for some reason.
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u/alsoaprettybigdeal 19d ago
Foot-binding in China was always sort of fascinating to me. A few years ago there was a meme of an X-ray of a foot that had been bound. That shit is CRAZY!!!
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u/BSB8728 18d ago
My daughter-in-law's grandmother had bound feet, even though the practice was outlawed by that time. The process involved breaking bones.
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u/alsoaprettybigdeal 18d ago
Oh my god! Wearing a tight pair of shoes that fit me feels like torture. I can’t imagine the pain of foot bonding.
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u/Tris-Von-Q 18d ago
There’s a scene in the Netflix series Marco Polo where Jia Sidao starts the binding process on his niece to send a message to her mother—let’s just say it was well acted.
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u/SecondOfCicero 18d ago
My dad had a pretty visceral reaction to that scene, compared to anything else in the show.
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u/blueooze 18d ago
People from around the world used to bind skulls. Like those pictures you see of ancient egypt with the really tall hats? Yeah it wasn't just a hat.
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u/Tiny_Rat 16d ago
Head binding might have been a thing for a few generations of pharaohs, including Tutankhamun and his father Akhenaten, but it wasn't really a general practice in ancient Egypt. A lot of those elongated headdresses were just hats.
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u/classifiedspam 18d ago
Crazy, and very painful indeed.
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u/HaplessApricot 18d ago
I felt so sad for her when she mentioned being envious of today’s women, because they don’t have to go through this and they are freer than her generation got to be. Reminds me not to take it for granted, you know? If I had been born 50 years earlier, in another place, it could have happened to my feet...
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u/taxcider 18d ago
That was not a fashion. It was a form of enslavement.
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u/MoistUniversities 18d ago
Stuff can be two things
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u/taxcider 18d ago
Yes, just like chains around ankles were a hip trend in the Americas, 250 years ago.
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u/classifiedspam 18d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding
It was fashion indeed. "...bound feet were considered a status symbol and a mark of beauty..."
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u/taxcider 18d ago
Considered such by the people who demanded that women did this, not by the women themselves. It was a way of selling off slavery as something to aspire to. Gaslighting would be the current term.
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u/gggggrrrrrrrrr 18d ago
I think my favorite is court dress in regency era England. Formal court gowns for decades were required to have panniers to add width around the hips. Combined with a very defined waist, this could be a lovely, elegant look.
But starting in the late 1790s, fashions changed, causing the waist of the dress to rise and loosen. Empire waisted dresses were usually flowy, slim, body hugging dresses.
However, Queen Caroline was old fashioned and still required her noblewomen to wear panniers. This resulted in a ridiculous silhouette for dresses, that essentially looked like boobs on top of a balloon.
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u/HorowitzGroupie 18d ago
When Coco Chanel accidentally got sunburn on a vacation everyone started tanning
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u/spark8000 15d ago
Coco Chanel
Woah, a single person was responsible for starting the desire for tanned skin?
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u/mainstreetmark 18d ago
A current one in my area is dudes with trucks will lower the backend and maybe raise the front end. They drive around having to hunch up to the steering wheel to see where they are going. They also blind drivers in front of them at night.
I have no idea why more than one person would do this, therefore it must be a fashion trend.
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u/AlabamaPlagueDog 18d ago
Alabama?
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u/labdsknechtpiraten 18d ago
It's called a Carolina Squat, so I'd reckon you may see some in alabama
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u/Josquius 18d ago
The old Japanese fashion for women to black their teeth stands out as truly bizzare and unattractive to me
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u/Anchor_face 18d ago
They would apply a laquer, which may have actually provided some tooth protection as well as being a fashion trend. Dental hygiene was lacking in those days...
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u/redditrookie707 18d ago
I particularly enjoyed the frilly neck thing that Sheakspeare wore, that monk haircut where they just shaved the very top of their heads and let the rest grow out, the powdered wig look, and uggs.
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u/labdsknechtpiraten 19d ago
Fairly specific to the Landsknecht mercs, but to go along with the codpiece thing, they also had the slashed clothing thing going on.
Now, looking at it, it looks utterly ridiculous, but apparently it was quite a fearsome sight, and had a practical purpose as well.
See, this was in the times before proper modern banks had come along, so the soldiers, when (if) they got paid, they needed a way to carry their wealth. Gold coins are heavy. So why not spend it on clothes? Ergo, they buy as much material as their money could get, and now they don't need to carry coins.
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u/Phocasola 18d ago
So they wore baggy clothes, because that was their idea of a good investment?
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u/labdsknechtpiraten 18d ago
Well, there was literally no place to store their money.
And it wasn't just the baggy clothes. They were also notorious for ostrich feathers (on this one, there was a sort of internal policing/ranking system... Like, you couldn't survive one battle and then just go get a ton of feathers for your hat. Like, only the captains and senior veterans were able to go hog wild on ostrich feathers). I've seen apocryphal tales of there being ostrich feather shortages globally because these dudes were buying so many.
They also bought a lot of lace, chains and jewelry, and other "fashionable" items. I mean, basically, if it was a fashion accessory or item, it was being bought and worn by the Landsknecht.
I guess the thinking was, if you survived your contract, you could go home, sell the fabric, lace, metals, or whatever for something and it was a decent investment in themselves.
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u/Phocasola 18d ago
So did they wear all these fashion statements into battle? Because that sound super encumbering and also it would put the investment into danger of being destroyed or damaged?
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u/labdsknechtpiraten 18d ago
Yup. Some of the stuff I've read, historians talk about stories where, especially the dopplesoldners (double pay soldiers, aka the vets, who were allowed to carry the flamberge swords) would occasionally get the ends of handles caught in the various slashes of their sleeves during battle.
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u/raymaehn 18d ago
It's not particularly useful for combat but it was the most secure way to store it. Leaving the stuff at camp guaranteed that it would get stolen because military camps were full of unsavoury types. The only way to be sure you wouldn't be robbed without your knowledge was to carry your wealth on your person.
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u/Rowenstin 18d ago
Ah, so all my D&D characters behave in a historically accurate fashion!
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u/raymaehn 18d ago
If anybody in history deserves the description "Murderhobo" it's the travelling mercenaries of the 30 Years War.
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u/Rum_N_Napalm 16d ago
Modern equivalent would be pimp fashion.
If you are arrested for pimping, your money can be seized as income from criminal activities, but not your jewellery/ clothing. So the idea is that if you are arrested, an associate can pawn some of your bling to pay your bail/lawyers.
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u/Void_Bastard 18d ago
The current Sideshow Bob hairstyle that every boy and young man seems to be rocking these days looks goofy af.
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u/letthedaybegin 18d ago
Can you link to an image of this? I’m serious curious as to wtf this could be
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u/Waitingforadragon 18d ago
I'm not sure but I think OP might be talking about this sort of thing.
https://www.menshairstylestoday.com/perm-hairstyles-for-men/
Some young men now are shaving the sides of their heads and having the hair on the top permed so that it is super curly.
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u/peleles 19d ago
Totally subjective, but European women's clothing after stays/corsets appear. Add pads, farthingales and crinolines, high heels during late-17th and 18th centuries, and it's just bizarre...or would be, if we weren't so used to seeing such clothing.
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u/I_Am_Become_Air 18d ago
The men, with their wasp waist coats and heels (to stay on the horse) were equally bizarre. Pad did not make them look like Corinthians--it made them look like idiots who needed to loosen their corsets.
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u/Waitingforadragon 18d ago
The thing that interests me is how much the shapes change over the years. You go from a wide circular skirt, to everyone being in bustles at the back. Such a big change really.
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u/peleles 18d ago
Yeah there really are such huge changes. You have the Elizabethan roundish shape that changes, then the mid-late 17th century Spanish farthingale, then the 18th century look that expands sideways to various widths, then multiple underskirts of the 1840s moving into the giant mid-19th century crinoline that changes shape to the point that there are a couple of decades when women resemble chairs, culminating with the Edwardian s-bend. It's wild!
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u/Fickle-dill-pickle 18d ago
I remember that one time where I had to take the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel and in those days nickels had pictures of bumble bees on them. Gimme five bees for a quarter you'd say. So the important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
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u/Anus_Drippings 18d ago
What is this a reference to? Sounds really familiar but I can't place it.
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u/thebassoprofondo 18d ago
As they said, specifically the Lemon Tree episode
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u/Sgt_Colon 17d ago
No, this is from Last exit to Springfield when burns is trying to get "some strikebreakers, the kind they had in the '30s."
https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=431&t=21936
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u/aioncan 19d ago
The fade with permed top. If it’s naturally curly it’s fine but to perm it is too much.
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u/sitquiet-donothing 18d ago
remember when they would curl all the way down the back too, not just the top? I was 14 and all the macho boys looked like poodles...
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u/vikinghockey10 18d ago
Yeah the high school trends right now are fade with permed top or mullets with a fade. Both won't age well.
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u/Elite_Slacker 18d ago
Is that the same as the tik tok mens hairsyle? Very short on the sides with a hilarious stupid poof on top?
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u/BlowMoreGlass 18d ago
"a river of piss runs through art history. For centuries, painters and sculptors have depicted the act of urination. Men piss. Women piss. Most of all, young boys piss, so much so that scholars assigned a Latin term, puer mingens, to their ubiquitous appearances. Now Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, a French critic, has written “[Pissing Figures, 1280–2014]” a genealogy of the pisseurs and pisseuses who haunt our canvases, fountains, and frescoes"
"Indeed, a boy’s piss seems at some point to have crossed streams with holy water, becoming blessed with ablutionary powers. In Italy, Lebensztejn notes, “it is still customary, even today, to call an infant’s intemperate pee acqua santa.” Sometimes the gift of pure piss transferred to adulthood, though it helped if you were aiming heavenward. A thirteenth-century fresco in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi shows three angels, grown men, holding their penises over Christ on the cross, as if they might relieve his suffering by relieving themselves."
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u/HRTendies 19d ago
The modern tie. It's a vestigial leftover from long ago.
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u/Karmatic_Disorder 19d ago
I think you just made ties weird for me
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u/taxcider 18d ago
Let me make it weirder: they originally were sashes worn to wipe your hunting knife on.
And that's why, if they have a pattern of lines, they always slant the same direction: as if you'd wiped your knife on the tie while holding the knife in your right hand. Left hand side high, right hand low, as seen from the wearer's perspective.
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u/WhiskRy 18d ago
Where did you read that? I just did a search and everything says they were ties to keep the top of Croatian soldiers’ coats closed
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u/Calm_Strength_9888 19d ago
Poullaines (sp?). The length et al was controlled by status and sumptuary laws. The longer and more curled the higher you were in the hierarchy.
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u/fiendishrabbit 19d ago
On a similar note. Hanging sleeves (sleeves with a slash in the side where your arm pokes out. In upper class dress the sleeves could get very long, almost all the way to the ground). Both the length and trim were controlled by sumptuary laws.
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u/a-really-big-muffin 18d ago
For a while during the Victorian era, stuffing an entire bird and putting it on your hat was wildly popular. As you might imagine, animal lovers were less than thrilled, and this fashion trend actually led to the creation of the first Audubon Society.
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u/doctor-rumack 18d ago
Tying an onion around your belt. "Give me five bees for a quarter," we’d say.
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u/Alexandertheape 18d ago
Italian pointy shoes called Crakows in 15th Century Europe. they got to be ridiculous
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u/theangelok 17d ago
I always found the perfume cones the ancient Egyptians wore on their heads a bit weird.
But the most bizarre fad I can think of is head binding to achieve an elongated head. Even weirder is that it was practiced all over the world.
I also imagine that for somebody who has never seen them, ties would be a pretty absurd piece of clothing.
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u/Alimbiquated 18d ago
The Chinese custom of foot binding was pretty crazy. Try an image search.
Also neck elongation, which is still practiced in Thailand I think: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Neck\_ring
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u/HawkFritz 19d ago
Iirc the whole country of Spain speaks with a lisp after one of their kings had a lisp sometime in the past 500 years. The royal court started imitating it to flatter him/not make him feel self-conscious, from there it spread to the wider aristocracy, then propagated out to everyone. I'm not saying lisps are ridiculous, but it's really similar to a ridiculous the emperor has no clothes scenario. I also could be inaccurate in this, but I learned it in Spanish class from a teacher who had studied abroad in Spain.
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u/WhiskRy 19d ago
This is a myth. It’s usually attributed to King Ferdinand, but has no real historical evidence. While it’s a cute and convenient story, the truth is more mundane: languages develop dialects over time, and Spain developed its own, distinct from the rest of the Spanish speaking world. If you have any doubts, consider that Spaniards pronounce ‘s’s as s, but ‘c’s and ‘z’s as th. Wouldn’t people copying a lisp preserve the lisp across all ‘s’ sounds?
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u/camilo16 19d ago
As a spanish speaker I would have suspected it was the rest of the spanish speaking world that developed the wrong dialects? It's just so damn convenient that spain's spanish is closer to true "how you read it is how you pronounce it" than the rest of us.
As you mention c's and z's have their own sounds over s. I always thought this was deliberate and that either the reading was made that way to reflect speech or speech modified to reflect text.
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u/sitquiet-donothing 19d ago
Togas. Seriously, think about it. What is more lazy than wrapping yourself in a sheet and going to the store? Really think about walking around, outside, in public, wrapped in a sheet...
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u/fiendishrabbit 19d ago
Given how long it takes to put on a toga (or a kilt) properly (so that it looks neat and has all the proper folds) it's the opposite of lazy.
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u/Sgt_Colon 17d ago
Given that it had to be mandated that citizens in the forum had to wear theirs by Augustus and that they were heavily unpopular compared to the simple tunic, lazy is quite the opposite especially with the more elaborate forms it took on during the course of the empire by the aristocracy.
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u/imapassenger1 18d ago
Didn't the Romans ban boots? Sandals only.
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u/sitquiet-donothing 18d ago
I think I would like them more if they wore boots with the sheets. Something about combat boots and sheets combo makes me smile...
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u/diogenes_shadow 19d ago
This is probably only because I was 7, but I seriously dug the miniskirt craze.
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u/bastaway 18d ago
Did Queen Elizabeth have rotten teeth because of sweets or because she used ceruse on her face and cinnabar on her lips, and likely died of lead and mercury poisoning?
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u/Key-Faithlessness308 18d ago
I'm sure I read somewhere about women on the Indian sub continent using lead to darken round their eyes. The practise is slowly dying out at a similar rate to those that do it
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u/Suralin0 18d ago
Chopines. Giant, foot-high-plus platform shoes that noblewomen would wear, to the point that they would need a person on either side to keep them steady.
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u/resqwec 18d ago
Something that is bizarre to us is that the bowler hat was often the hat of the working class in 19th-century England, rather than the flat cap
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u/third-try 19d ago
Neckties. Wearing a rope around your neck? Can you be more submissive to your masters?
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u/genocidefood 18d ago
Tiny shoes considered as fancy in mediaeval/ancient China. They were crushing their feet as they started wearing them from childhood.
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u/mchistory21st 18d ago
When I was in college in the 90s, for a year or two almost every girl on campus had to have a brown leather jacket and ugly Topsiders (I think they're called deck shoes or boat shoes). A literal sea of brown leather and ugly shoes. It was like some sort of psyop optical illusion meant to drive one insane.
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u/NeonsStyle 18d ago edited 18d ago
When everyone thought fashion in the 21st century would be like the Jetsons, they'd be horrified to find out it's more like the 19th century! The odd thing is guys look like they are from the 19th Century while Women are going full on 21st Century.
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u/mostlygroovy 18d ago
I would say any influence that Kanye West has had on today’s fashion
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u/imapassenger1 18d ago
Kids in 2015 wore their pants inside out. Oh sorry that was Back to the Future...
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u/dalekaup 18d ago
The current trend of women wearing ripped up jeans is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen.
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u/Straberyz 18d ago
Poulaines, those really really long shoes that men wore in Medieval English Court.
The higher your importance or status the longer your shoe could be.
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u/[deleted] 18d ago
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u/LynneCDoyle 18d ago
In centuries past a prestigious medical diploma from the university of Heidelberg earned you a sword scar down your left cheek at your graduation ceremony. It was outlawed, but graduates continued the practice clandestinely.
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u/threewhiteroses 19d ago
Women plucking their hairlines back so their foreheads were much higher in medieval time periods.