Painful/weird fashions

[Tundra]

I'm doing something right now, (one of my many projects) not to do with a novel, where I need a list of painful/weird fashions through the ages. Things that people agonise over. I particularly need ideas for males, but females are good too. I have things like padding the legs to make a more shapelier cut. I realise that men weren't such a slave to painful fashions as women, but there were some. I just have a mental blank right now. They don't have to be european either. And they don't have to be painful.

[felixia]

Uhmmm...I read once that sometimes in the past (like aaages ago) some women had their ribcages removed ro something so they could look thinner. Not fashion but part of it maybe.
I also saw clothes made from paper once. Bleh. (maybe more wierd than painful =))
And I read in tthe magazine this morning that suddenly gusy do that pants-way-to-low-with boxers pulled up high with boardshorts when they swim. Had a nice big picture emblazoined with CHAFFECHAFFECHAFFE.

Dunno if thats what you were looking for.. =/

[Tundra]

That wasn't ages ago, that was the 19th century. but yes, ouch. I think i'll add that in!

[Thren]

In some tribes in Africa, the women elongate their necks with steel rings added over the years, stretching it and meaning that they can never *not* wear the rings.... They also put discs in their ears and lips that stretch out to massive holes...and let us not forget the god-awful corset, cause of many a fainting spell..or the chinese women who had/have their feet bound to keep them small....

[kiss_me_now9]

Thing that springs to my mind when I think of strange fashions is all the poisonous stuff they used, day in day out that ended up killing them... Belladonna makes your eyes go big and round (either the greeks or romans who did that) and Lead gives you that lovely just out of the grave looked that was favoured all those years ago...

[ellarie_mystic]

Hah..the just out of the grave look is still popular..it's called goth.
....Thongs are pretty weird.
So are high-high heels. I've seen a few women that esspecially look like they'll fall down any minute, wobbling through their day..Honestly. It looks like it hurts a lot.

[vindemiatrix]

Back in I think Tudor times, men used to wear pointed shoes. I mean, really pointed. Sometimes the points were so long that they had to tie them up to their knees to walk in them. Also, ruffs were so big that special spoons had to be made, ones with extra long handles, because nobody could make normal spoons reach over the ruff so they could eat their soup. Scratching your nose was out of the question, too. Codpieces were also stuffed to appear phenomenally large. O_o Henry VIII demonstrated this, I think. And, a little off-topic, in the past there's been a tendency to judge a man's attractiveness by the shape of his calves. Seems bizarre nowadays, but there you go.

As far as women's fashions go, the wimple was a funny one. I mean, it's a big cone with a bit of veil on the end. There's also farthingales, these things that sat on women's hips and their dresses went over them. They could be massively wide, so that women's dresses became so huge they had to go through doors sideways. And there's the bustle, which is pretty ridiculous, and that brief period in history when women had REALLY TALL HAIR. Mostly wigs, obviously. They reached about four feet in height, sometimes, all curls and elaborate doohickeys.

That's all I can think of atm, anyway. ^_^

ETA: How bizarre. There I go talking about elaborate doohickeys and my rank changes to "doohickey technician". Weird. Eerie.

[AXJ]

Neckties can be plenty uncomfortable- and that goes double when british styles were applied to UBER HOT climates, and men were still expected to turn out in wool suits and neckties. I still don't understand how the tie thing has only JUST NOW fallen by the wayside. Ugh. I HATE wearing them.

It might be interesting to look into body piercing as something uncomfortable that people do for fashion. There's not just the initial pain, but the continuing annoyance of snagging them on garmets, bedspreads, other people, etc.

[Aimless]

Tattooing, scarring, piercing... in ancient India (among other places) men would often enlarge their earlobes by inserting metal or wooden discs into them and using larger and larger discs over the ears. Sometimes, the earlobes would actually tear (which gave rise to some of the world's first cosmetic surgery techniques :o).

Oh and don't forget corsets and arsenic ;)

[Not Indigo]

In some tribes in Africa, the women elongate their necks with steel rings added over the years, stretching it and meaning that they can never *not* wear the rings....

I think you're thinking of the Burmese Padaungs, not an African tribe. And actually, Padaung women can take their coils off, though they rarely do so--and it's rare that they do so for long periods of time. The "elongated neck" look (actually, it's their shoulders being pressed down, rather than their necks getting longer) is achieved by adding a coil a year until they're carrying up to 22kg of brass on their shoulders. Women will have the coils taken off so that they can be refitted every once in a while. On the National Geographic show Taboo, they showed this process; the woman getting her coils refitted hadn't seen her neck in a decade.

The women's neck muscles weaken and sometimes atrophy from this practice, and that's why they don't go coil-less for great periods of time. However, it's a myth that all Padaung women absolutely cannot ever take their rings off.

End rant. Sorry--this is one topic I hate seeing misinformation on, for some reason. :oops: I think it might be because I think the coils look really pretty.

As for other painful fashion choices, check out Wikipedia's pages on body modification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_modification).

Aussi--the rib removal thing is another urban legend (http://www.snopes.com/horrors/vanities/ribs.htm).

[snooze]

I dunno if anyone mentioned the plainly obvious discomfort of corsets, what with the internal-organ-squishiness.

Mini skirts and tube tops on the 30+ crowd? Not that it hurts THEM, but it hurts my eyes. And my brain.

There's also a Hindu festival which I cannot recall the spelling of to save my life...
Uhm...Thaipusam!
Not so much a fashion statement as much as a means of repentance. People pierce various body parts with long metal skewers, or sit in cages with skewers poking inwards into them. Or people dig hooks into the flesh of their backs and drag heavy carts this way to atone for their sins and the sins of their loved ones.
Masochists, unite? Most of the other Hindu festivals I did research on involved more painless practices. However, Hinduism changes a lot depending on where you are, globally, and so there isn't really a set of festivals that one must celebrate or take part in. It's one of the more elastic and universal kind of religious systems.

Anyhow, google image search Thaipusam if you wish. I'm eating right now so I didn't delve too deeply into the webpages I found. Plus I did a project on this last year so I've paid my ick-viewing dues.

[Maegan]

Not sure if this kind of thing would be helpful, but there are also things like prison tattoos and self-branding that have become more poular in the past decade. Guys branding each other when entering a fraternity (show of "brotherhood") is no longer entirely uncommon these days. Plus, you just have genearl tattooing, such as certain tribes of people or religious mystics tattooing their entire bodies, that kind of thing.

I'm not sure if you are just looking for clothes fashions or any kind of fashion, so I thought I'd throw that in there.

[felixia]

That wasn't ages ago, that was the 19th century. but yes, ouch. I think i'll add that in!

Well, yeah. But I meant like it wasn't in the...80s...or seomthing. (I knew you'd get what i meant though =D)

[Aimless]

The people with the skewers tend to be in a trancelike state and therefore it's thought they don't feel much pain.

[AXJ]

The people with the skewers tend to be in a trancelike state and therefore it's thought they don't feel much pain.

And, hopefully, it's not about fashion.

[Sulis]

Heels used to be really popular among men as well... Why anyone would put themselves through that, I don't know. And no, I don't wear heels myself.

What about people who file their teeth? Not necessarily painful (though I can't imagine listening to a file rubbing across each of my teeth until they were all pointed) but definitely odd. THere is a specific tribe somewhere though I can't remeber where or who...

[Tundra]

^ the aztecs used to do that! Yes, i think i'll mention that! And the head flattening!!

[sockpuppet]

There was a canteen lady at my school who had those pointy teeth. Scary huh?

[ellarie_mystic]

What about scarification? I got a book on that kind of thing, and WHOLE FACES were designed.
There's branding.
And genital beading.

[Arden]

During the Lewis and Clark expidition they encountered some indian women...sorry I don't recall the name of the tribe... that bound ropes tightly around their legs to make them swell and get big, it was a mark of beauty but I imagine it would be as painful as it would be irritating! They also would crouch instead of sit to make their legs swell even more! :shock: :D I guess those braves didn't like their woman with chicken legs...

[girlunquestioned]

This isn't exactly fashion, but it's so appalling I thought I would mention it. In many African tribes, when female children are young, they sew their labia together to ensure chastity. By the time they are married, the skin is fused together. The husband is expected to cut it away. If the skin is already cut, then she is seen as "not a virgin," and most likely stoned to death.

[Tundra]

^ yepyep. Did a few weeks on that topic for uni. And stuff about it in year 12. Not quite what I'm looking for, but thanks anyway.

[vindemiatrix]

This isn't exactly fashion, but it's so appalling I thought I would mention it. In many African tribes, when female children are young, they sew their labia together to ensure chastity. By the time they are married, the skin is fused together. The husband is expected to cut it away. If the skin is already cut, then she is seen as "not a virgin," and most likely stoned to death.

O______O!!!

Just had to express my feelings there.

[Aimless]

Yep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infibulation :|

[Tundra]

^ if you're interested look at 'female circumcision' or 'female genital mutilation'.

If they just sewed it, that'd be quite pleasant compared to what happens to others, at the age of like, 10, intentionally without being knocked out first (testing their strength i suppose) and done usually by an old woman with a rusty kitchen knife, and some thorns to 'sew' it together.