Fashion has an important impact on health, just as music and art have an important impact on health and society. Fashion, in brief, is the genre of dressing, particularly the clothes that a person wears. In early times, the word “fashion” referred only to the clothes that a person wore for the purpose of showing off wealth or status. Then, slowly, it came to refer to any kind of dressing that was fashionable or attractive. Fashion changes constantly with the progress of time and culture, just as music and art do. Thus, the word “fashions” no longer refers to a particular class or category of people but refers to something general.
In the late nineteenth century, fashion began to describe clothing items that were designed to improve health by reducing damped cold and preventing heat loss. Damp cold was described as clothing that was either not air-tight or too light; clothes which absorbed moisture from the environment and retained the moisture, resulting in skin conditions such as acne, folliculitis, or chapped lips. Fashion objects that were designed to prevent damped cold included knitted sweaters, felt hats, underskirts, and woolen caps. Fashion items that reduce or absorb damp cold included heavy socks, over-shirts, woolly hats, heavy coats, and insulating clothing like visco elastic pants. The nineteenth century saw the birth of many institutions that were designed to promote health in modern clothing as well as encouraging better hygiene.
Another fashion health hazard identified in the late twentieth century was pregnant women’s high heels. For decades, pregnant women were ridiculed for their high heels, which made walking much more difficult and oftentimes resulted in a broken ankle or a trip to the hospital. High heels also pose health risks during pregnancy, including backaches, pressure sores, and fatigue, as well as dangers to the unborn child. In addition to the dangers posed by wearing high heels, they also increase a woman’s chances of developing bone spurs, a condition that results from osteoporosis.
