What are the origins of this fun-filled festive custom?
Many might already be familiar with the male gen**** piercing called the Prince Albert. Prince Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria, and it's rumored that he was the first person to sport this particular piercing! However, it's more likely a story made up by the real inventor.
Girls would begin tightly bandaging their feet around the age of six to stunt their growth and force them to develop in a strange shape that was considered attractive. There are still women alive today with these tiny deformed feet.
Some ancient cultures practiced skull shaping, also known as artificial cranial deformation. It’s believed to have been used by the ancient Mayans, and archaeological discoveries suggest it was also practiced in 5th-century France.
Small dainty feet are considered feminine and pretty in many cultures, but the Chinese tradition of foot binding takes this to another level. Although the origins are unknown, it was common practice among the wives and daughters of nobles by the 13th century.
If you ever thought there was something a bit odd-looking about the women in old paintings, you’d be right. Large smooth foreheads were a desired feature in women during the Renaissance period, so they would often pluck or shave back their hairlines to elongate their foreheads.
European women began to wear heavy makeup during the 18th century. It was the era of Marie Antoinette, and everything about fashion and beauty was decadent. A carefully placed beauty mark was the height of elegance, but some women went even further with the “beauty patch.”
White teeth were considered beautiful, but not the big dazzling Hollywood smiles we covet today. Women preferred to have short teeth, like baby teeth. However, the subjects of Renaissance portraits rarely showed their teeth because few people had perfect white teeth in those days.
A beauty patch was a small piece of fabric that would be stuck to the face, similar to a beauty mark. However, the patch could be cut in many different shapes, such as stars and squares. Their placement was also significant. A beauty patch close to the mouth indicated flirtatiousness.
But in ancient Greece, the unibrow was a sign of both beauty and intelligence in women. Women would make their unibrows look fuller by using dark powder. Those who had the misfortune to be born with two separate eyebrows would use paint to connect them.
The practice of teeth blackening has been used to signify many different things in Asian culture throughout history. Pure black objects were considered to be immensely beautiful, which can be seen in the long history of lacquered artifacts in Japan.
Similar to the trend of having pale skin, these impractical long nails were a sign that you didn’t need to work with your hands. Wealthy women would wear ornate nail guards to protect their larger-than-life manicures.
Men would wear stockings below the knee, which showed off their legs, so it was essential for them to be strong and shapely. Some men even wore padding inside their stockings to exaggerate the size of their calves.
From the Middle Ages until the 18th century, it was all about the calves. Men during this period didn’t seem to care so much about abs or biceps, but they had to have strong, muscular calves.
N**** piercings seem like both a very ancient and very modern practice. It turns out there was also something in between! It’s recorded that the “bosom ring” came into fashion for women of the Victorian era.
Another reason they looked a little strange is that sometimes they didn’t have eyebrows or eyelashes! Eyebrows somehow became oversexualized, so a smooth, fresh-faced look came into fashion.
Necklines began to plunge in 17th-century European fashion. During this period, pale skin was associated with wealth. Laborers would be tanned from working the sun, so it became a sign of their lower social class.
Women would pluck away their entire eyebrows, and even their eyelashes, to achieve this look. The pain doesn’t bear thinking about.
Wealthy women wanted their exposed cleavage to appear so pale that it was nearly translucent. To this effect, they would sometimes even draw pale blue lines on their chests to mimic veins.
Teeth blackening, known as ohaguro, has been practiced in Japan for hundreds of years. Early on, it was done by teenage girls and boys to signify their coming of age. During the Edo period, women would blacken their teeth daily after marriage.
Various types of corsets have been worn throughout history to achieve specific silhouettes. Around the beginning of the 19th century, a style called the divorce corset came into fashion.
It was aptly named because it separated the breasts to create a wider bust, rather than pushing them together. They would sometimes have a triangle of padding in the center to create a distinct gap between the breasts.
This meant that women were forced to arch their backs, which created an 'S' and enhanced the bustle of their dresses. Needless to say, they caused long-lasting damage to the spine.
A more extreme and dangerous style of corset that came into fashion in the Edwardian era was the S-bend corset. They maintained the hourglass figure, but they also forced the hips backwards at an unnatural angle.
Trade shortages during World War II meant that women couldn't get their hands on new pantyhose. They always wore skirts, so stockings were a daily requirement. They found a workaround by painting their legs to look like they were wearing pantyhose!
They often wore headdresses too, and might hide their receding hairline under the headdress so they almost appear to be bald.
If they couldn't afford the paint, gravy was apparently a sufficient alternative. Some women even went as far as to draw the seam line down the back of their legs with eyeliner pencil.
Sources: (Ranker) (All Things Interesting) (Style Caster) (Live Japan) (BBC)
See also: How accurate are the costumes on Netflix's 'Bridgerton'?
The Qing Dynasty in China lasted from 1636 to 1912, and during this period long nails were all the rage. Both men and women would grow their nails up to 10 inches (25 cm) long.
An infant's head would be strapped to a board to flatten and elongate the skull. This was done to both male and female children, and was considered to be a sign of beauty rather than a marker of status.
There were many specific traits attributed to the ideal woman during the Renaissance period. These included pale skin, rosy lips and cheeks, a narrow waist, and wide hips. One of the more unusual features that was desired at the time was short teeth.
Female body hair is being reclaimed in a big way at the moment, and pioneers like Frida Kahlo bravely sported their natural facial hair in the past. That being said, the unibrow has rarely been seen as a desired feature.
They say that beauty is pain. They are right. Women, and occasionally men, have had to go to extreme lengths to meet the beauty standards of their time throughout history. Today we wax and contour and bleach, but at least we don't have to pluck out our eyelashes or reshape our bones! Our ancestors seriously suffered for their appearances.
Click through this gallery to discover some of the most outrageous fashion and beauty trends that have popped up in history. Some of them are truly incomprehensible.
The most bizarre and dangerous fashion trends in history
They went out of fashion for good reason...
LIFESTYLE Curiosities
They say that beauty is pain. They are right. Women, and occasionally men, have had to go to extreme lengths to meet the beauty standards of their time throughout history. Today we wax and contour and bleach, but at least we don't have to pluck out our eyelashes or reshape our bones! Our ancestors seriously suffered for their appearances.
Click through this gallery to discover some of the most outrageous fashion and beauty trends that have popped up in history. Some of them are truly incomprehensible.