10 weird trends that were fashionable at some point in history

Times change at an ever-increasing speed, and with it, so do fashions and trends. Therefore, it is very common when we are faced with images from other times, to end up thinking about things like “but why did they dress like that?”, or “how did they manage to use it that way?”. Even what we use today may become obsolete tomorrow, and perhaps future generations will ask these same questions.

O awesome.club decided to show habits and fashions that were trends in the past, but that today are seen as strange or extravagant.

Beauty standards are always changing over the years. While nowadays we have the big and dazzling smiles of Hollywood stars as hegemonic, at the time of the Renaissance, women preferred small teeth, like those of milk. Also, perfectly white smiles were rare, which is why such attributes were not depicted in paintings of the time.

Even though feminist icons such as Frida Kahlo and Sophia Hadjipanteli have taken back the “unibrow”
as part of natural beauty, it is considered an odd feature by today’s standards. However, in Ancient Greece, joined eyebrows were seen as synonymous with beauty, so much so that, in several cases, women painted or put false wires to achieve the same effect.

The tube skirt was a predominant trend in women’s clothing in the early years of the twentieth century, and is now seen as very uncomfortable, as the fact that it is too tight on the body prevents comfortable walking. The trend began to lose popularity as it caused more and more problems due to limited movement.

From the early 1900s until approximately 1910, it was common for women to wear the so-called Edwardian corset, also known as a “swan’s beak” or “health corset”. The accessory allowed highlighting the hips by forcing the chest from behind.

Despite having healthy pretensions by exerting less pressure on the stomach, this corset caused several injuries due to the unnatural position, forcibly imposed on the back.

The economic scarcity between the mid-1930s and the 1940s affected the stockings market in the United States, despite the fact that they were a fundamental requirement for the feminine look at the time, always accompanying the use of skirts. To solve the problem, many have resorted to the solution of using eyeliner pencils to paint subtle lines on their legs. The intention was to create the illusion that the woman was wearing stockings, compensating for the absence of an item hitherto considered essential.

The corset has already been seen as a very useful female accessory to shape or stylize the silhouette, highlighting certain attributes and gaining different functions over the years. In the middle of the 19th century, both in France and in England, it was common to find the so-called “divorce corset”. It separated the breasts instead of joining them, giving the impression of a fuller bust.

The so-called cloche hats are easily seen in old photos or movies set in the 1920s. The piece was fitted on the head and covered the forehead in a very peculiar way, leaving only the eyes on display. Already in the early 30s, this hat model lost popularity, and is now seen as something outdated.

In the Renaissance, women didn’t want bangs covering their foreheads. This area of ​​the face should be as smooth as possible, and many even shaved off part of their hair to show off a larger forehead. They still braided and curled the locks, using small accessories to hide the finishing touches.

This shoe, extremely pointed and strange looking for today, was used by some men in Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries. The accessory was associated with apparently futile young people with unorthodox habits for the time. Many conservatives considered it a ridiculous and shameful fashion, going so far as to dub the shoe “devil’s fingers”.

Before platform shoes, what was used between the 15th and 17th centuries to appear taller and more elegant were shoes called chopines. In Venice, for example, they became a symbolic reference to a person’s social and cultural position. And the higher the chopines, the higher the social status of the woman.

What was fashionable in your youth and has fallen by the wayside, but that you would love to wear again? Comment!