BY LORD WHIMSY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAURA PARK
Imagine if, when you were a kid, your parents used elaborate and painful methods to force your head or feet into bizarre and permanent shapes. Or imagine if the surest way to get a decent job was to stand perfectly still while your friend hacked the side of your face with a cutlass. Now imagine never washing your hair until it became a hardened crust or being completely covered in mites and lice for your entire life. Or imagine living in permanent fear that your neighbors might at any moment decide to hunt you for the fur on top of your head.
Of course this isn’t fantasy: It’s history. Over the centuries, human beings have practically turned themselves inside out—and on occasion happily turned others inside out—for the sake of status and style. Let’s take a wee stroll down memory lane.
GROW YOUR OWN HELMET
WHAT’S THAT SMELL? OH—IT’S ME
IT’S ALL ME
braquette
A LITTLE OFF THE TOP, PLEASE
MAKING DO WITH WHAT’S LEFT
NARROW-MINDED
WATCH YOUR STEP
poulaine
two feet
CRUEL SHOES
are
LARGE MUSTACHES AND CUTLERY
Renommierschmiss
Mensur
Schlagers
FLEA COLLARS AND WIG SCRATCHERS
CORK-MOUTHED PARADE FLOATS
Of course, the list of such extremes in fashion is endless: children of political rivals kidnapped and horrifically mutilated for the amusement of royal courts, kids raised inside large vases to conform to their shape, men castrated to preserve their higher singing range, guillotine parties at which women wore cropped hair and red ribbons around their necks… you name it. Corny, tattooed catmen notwithstanding, people of our time are unusually tame with their style choices: Fashion Week has nothing on the Comprachicos. But who knows: If times continue to get more precarious, fashions might get weird again, fast. We might be shooting each other in the streets in five years, but our placenta-fan headdresses will look pretty damn fetching.
