#CBR11Bingo – History/Schmistory!
Killer Style is a quick read for anyone interested in fashion history. It is geared towards tweens and teens, but the information is great for older readers too. The book accounts different ways that clothes have been dangerous to people. The authors lean less on freak accidents and more on how industrialization and the clothing construction industry have killed people in the making of clothes. (We do get our fair share of freak accidents, though.) We get information from the ways poisonous elements used in hat-making and dying have ruined the lives of both constructors and wearers, to the risks of constrictive and flamboyant fashions like corsets, hobble skirts, and high heels.
Divided into three parts (“Horrified Heads”, “Miserable Middles”, and “Unlucky Legs”), the authors present each account with the right balance of seriousness and sardonic commentary. The book presents each tidbit in a two-page spread with fun asides that branch off the particular subject (for example, in the footwear pages, they outline all the horrors of footwear in fairy tales). Information is mostly historical, but also includes more recent accounts such as the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse and the deadly diagnosis of silicosis on workers in the modern denim industry. But it is very clear that these accounts, while interesting and sometimes entertaining, come down to how tragically unnecessary a lot of the death and mayhem has been, and how it has overwhelmingly affected impoverished and underprivileged victims. The conclusion, “Don’t blame the Victims” is a brief but effective summary on how regulation in the clothing and fashion industry protects the consumer.
A great primer on how fashion really does kill.
