… that Giorgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the subject of a new movie starring Kiera Knightly and Raph Fiennes which opens today, was arguably as big a style setter in her day (the 2nd half of the 18th century) as one of her direct descendants, Princess Diana, was in ours? Just as with Diana, the […]
… that high heels have been around for about 6000 years! Illustrations of spiky heels have been uncovered in Egyptian tombs dating back to 4000 BC. But, women had to wait until the 1950s for the invention of a thin metal rod that Salvatore Ferragamo named the Stiletto. The word comes […]
… that plastic surgery has been around for thousands of years? It may be increasingly in the news today due to its popularity, variety and sometimes, cautionary tales (eg Jocelyn Wildenstein, Joan Rivers, Michael Jackson, Carrot Top and many, many others), but plastic surgery procedures have been documented to exist as early as 600 […]
… that the first internationally recognized fashion designer (and stylist) was a contemporary of Marie Antoinette’s? Her name was Rose Bertin and it is no exaggeration to say that she was instrumental not only in turning Marie Antoinette into a fashion icon, but also in making fashion and haute couture a central part of […]
… that it is the Romans who gave us the word perfume? Per is Latin for “through” and fumum means “smoke” – the release of scent through burning. The ancient Romans were very inventive in their diffusion techniques, sometimes also sweetening the air by releasing birds with perfumed wings from their cages. […]
… that travel guides as we know them were first published in the mid-19th century? This is a relatively recent phenomena considering that people, especially young men of means, had been traveling for pleasure for about a hundred years? The continental Grand Tour had become a must for an English gentleman’s cultural and […]
… that nail polish was invented by the Chinese about 5,000 years ago? But then again, wasn’t just about everything devised by the Chinese first? I recently discovered for instance, that the Chinese began printing 600 years before Johannes Gutenberg came up with the printing press in Germany. The Chinese also used […]
… that platform shoes are not a recent invention? They have been around for a long, long time - hundreds of years actually. How many other trends can be said to have had such a long history? The platform’s ancestors are called chopines which were essentially mules on platforms - very high […]
… that it is only in relatively recent history that brides have been donning white on their wedding day? I am writing about this now because June, the most popular wedding month, is around the corner and Sex and the City: The Movie, is opening this week. And, as we all know by […]
… that the push up bra was originally devised about 200 years ago during the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte? Its invention was necessitated by the empire-style dresses fashionable at the time (see the above portrait of Madame Recamier and the portrait below of Stephanie de Beauharnais). The style of this era, which dates […]
… that by the end of the 19th century, a fashionable Victorian woman carried about 37 pounds of clothing? I am not talking about the aggregate weight of outfit changes throughout the day. I am talking about the average weight of a single ensemble which typically consisted of the following items: several […]
… that injectables of all sorts have been used for cosmetic purposes for over a century? Paraffin, a waxy substance used to make candles, was the substance of choice for a host of aesthetic procedures. Paraffin injections, first used in Vienna in the 1880s, were administered to reshape noses and to plump up […]
