Women Stripe and Sequel Dresses From Fashion Nova

Did you e'er find that the buttons on a shirt are on opposite sides for men and women? Curious to find out how World War 2 changed women's shaving habits? Ever idea about why men stopped wearing high heels? And what makes the 4th finger on our left hand the "ring finger"?

These aren't just random happenings or frivolous decisions by style magazines. Sometimes, war or other serious considerations influenced how we dress. In fact, there is a fascinating history backside many modern fashion trends. Read on to get the scoop behind some of our more puzzling way choices.

10 Why Women Shave Their Legs

Women accept not always shaved their legs. Indeed, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who was a trendsetter of her time, women weren't expected to remove torso hair. Instead, the way police of that era dictated that women ought to remove eyebrows and hair from their foreheads to make their faces announced longer. But leg hair? No need to shave.

So why did that change?

The simple answer is World War II. During the state of war, the United states experienced a stockings shortage as the government redirected the use of nylon from stockings to war parachutes. For women, the nylon shortage meant having to bare their legs in public. To be accounted socially adequate, women began to shave their legs. Afterwards the war, as skirts became shorter, the trend stuck around.^[1]

9 Why Girls Wear Pink And Boys Wear Blue

We take all been there. At a baby shower, the colour of everything—from the tablecloths to the napkins—corresponds to the gender of the baby. Blue is for boys, and pink is for girls. But things were not always this way.

For centuries, children younger than six by and large wore flowing white dresses according to Academy of Maryland historian Jo B. Paoletti, who wrote Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America. "White cotton wool can be bleached," she says, which made it a applied selection.

In the 1900s, colors began to exist used every bit gender signifiers. But the colors did not mean what they do now. For instance, a June 1918 article from a pop fashion magazine alleged:

"The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more than suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and squeamish, is prettier for the girl."^[ii]

Still, Paoletti says that these trends weren't particularly widespread.

Around 1985, that all inverse with the rise of prenatal testing, which allowed parents to determine the gender of the child. As expectant parents learned the sex of their babies, they began to shop for "girl" or "boy" merchandise. Retailers noticed and individualized wearable to increase their sales.

For the most part, this trend appears to have stuck. But Paoletti warns that it presents challenges for children who practise not conform to the colors assigned to their gender.

8 Why Women'due south And Men's Buttons Are On Opposite Sides

Odds are yous own a button-up shirt. Take a await at which side the buttons are on. If you're a homo, chances are the buttons are on the correct. If you're a woman, y'all'll probable find your buttons on the left.

There's an interesting historical reason for this. Melanie M. Moore, who created women's blouse brand Elizabeth & Clarke, explains: "When buttons were invented in the 13th century, they were, like virtually new engineering science, very expensive. [ . . . ] Wealthy women dorsum then did not dress themselves—their lady's maid did. Since most people were right-handed, this made it easier for someone standing across from you to button your dress."^[iii]

As for men's shirts, fashion historian Chloe Chapin traces the manner quirk to the military. "Access to a weapon . . . practically trumped everything," she says, noting that a firearm tucked inside a shirt would be easier to reach from the dominant side.

seven Why Men Stopped Wearing Loftier Heels

For generations, a pair of high heels has signaled feminine beauty. But before then, loftier heels were a staple in men's closets.

Elizabeth Semmelhack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto says, "The high heel was worn for centuries throughout the Nigh East equally a class of riding footwear. [ . . . ] When the soldier stood upward in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and pointer more effectively."^[4]

Nigh the 15th century, when Western farsi-European cultural exchange heightened, European aristocrats adopted high-heeled shoes every bit a symbol of their wealth. Co-ordinate to Semmelhack, elites have always used impractical wearable to showcase their privileged status.

Fast-forward to the Enlightenment era, which ostensibly brought with it an appreciation for the practical, and men began to renounce the impractical high heel. But sexism prohibited women from being viewed as rational beings. Semmelhack suggests that the desirability of women was then seen in terms of irrational style choices like the high heel.

half-dozen Why We Paint Our Nails

If you thought the manicure was a new phenomenon, you would be wrong. Did you know that the earth'due south oldest manicure set, made from solid gold dating to 3200 BC, is over 5,000 years old? The aboriginal Babylonians, who created that set, were known to have loved caring for their nails.

Ming Dynasty elites were also fans of painted nails, using a mixture of egg whites, gelatin, and rubber to dye their nails crimson and black. In England, Elizabeth I, a fashion icon of her day, was widely admired for her manicured nails and beautiful hands.^[5]

Suzanne Shapiro, a researcher at The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, says that long fingernails are impractical for hard labor, and so they accept tended to bespeak an elite social status.

Just Shapiro admits that nail trends come up and go. During the 1920s and '30s, the French manicure was in. Nonetheless, during the 1960s, women preferred a more natural look and rarely painted their nails.

5 Why Long Pilus Became A Thing For Women

While hair trends have fallen in and out of fashion, ane matter beyond cultures and millennia has remained adequately constant: the expectation that women would have long hair. Nosotros've seen it from the depiction of a long-haired Aphrodite to St. Paul's alphabetic character to the Corinthians, in which he wrote, "If a woman has long pilus, information technology is a celebrity to her."

Kurt Stenn, author of Pilus: A Human History, says that women almost always have longer pilus than men. But why?

According to Stenn, a former professor of pathology and dermatology at Yale, hair is highly chatty. It sends messages most sexuality, religious beliefs, and power. In particular, he believes that long hair can communicate health and wealth.

"To have long hair, you take to exist salubrious," Stenn says. "Yous accept to eat well, take no diseases, no infectious organisms, y'all have to have good rest and do." He adds, "To have long hair, you lot have to have your needs in life taken care of, which implies you accept the wealth to do information technology."^{[half dozen]}

4 Why Some People Sag Their Pants

In 2014, the Ocala, Florida, metropolis council passed an ordinance banning the practice of sagging (wearing one's pants beneath the waistline or, in some cases, the buttocks) on urban center-endemic holding. An offender would receive a $500 fine or six months in jail.

Like bans take surfaced from New Bailiwick of jersey to Tennessee. The rationale behind this sort of legislation normally goes something similar this: Sagging represents a dangerous lack of self-respect and an comprehend of gang culture. It is a symbol of moral decline.

Only how did sagging originate?

According to Academy of Massachusetts historian Tanisha C. Ford, the origins of sagging can't be definitively traced. But there are two leading theories. The start is that inmates, prohibited from wearing belts in prison, often sagged their uniforms. Then they connected the manner after returning home. The second theory is that convicts wore their pants low every bit a means of letting other prisoners know they were sexually available.^[vii]

3 Why Nosotros Article of clothing Wedding ceremony Bands On The 'Band Finger'

"With this ring, I thee wed." The ring is slipped onto the quaternary finger of the left hand, and there yous take information technology—a bride and groom! But accept y'all e'er asked yourself why nosotros sideslip our wedding bands onto the "ring finger"?

The tradition tin exist traced back to Roman times. The Romans believed that a vein ran direct from the centre to the ring finger. They named it the vena amoris ("vein of love"). Naturally, they idea information technology'd be plumbing fixtures to identify one's wedding band on that finger. Quite romantic!

By the manner, modern science has proven that all fingers accept a vein connection to our hearts.^[8]

2 Why Men Article of clothing Ties

Ties. They don't proceed u.s.a. warm, aren't practical, and are ofttimes uncomfortable. So why do men clothing them?

Most neckwear historians agree that the necktie grew in prominence around the time of the Thirty Years' War in the 1600s. To fight the war, King Louis XIII employed Croation mercenaries who wore a piece of cloth around their necks.

While these early on neckties were largely functional—they tied the tops of their jackets—Rex Louis XIII liked them every bit sartorial adornments. Indeed, he made these early neckties mandatory wearing apparel for formal gatherings and named them after the Croatian mercenaries: cravate. To this twenty-four hour period, that means necktie in France.

Curiously, Croatia celebrates national Cravat Twenty-four hours every Oct xviii. In 2003, they commemorated the vacation by tying an 808-meter (2,650 ft) tie around the celebrated Roman amphitheater in Pula.^[9]

ane Why Women Shave Their Armpits

Women and men have had armpit hair for millennia. And then why do roughly 95 percent of women shave or wax their underarms? Who woke upwards one day and decided that women with armpit hair are unsightly?

Well, we tin thank a 1915 Harper's Boutique advertisement for that. Earlier then, women with bushy pits were the norm. But the ad told women that modern dancing and sleeveless dresses were the adjacent big matter and that "objectionable hair" was out. The advertising featured a photo of a immature adult female in a sleeveless dress. Her arms were arched over her caput, revealing perfectly articulate armpits.

Inside a few years and after an onslaught of advertisements promoting the trend, hairless armpits were a thing and natural hair was something embarrassing. Indeed, a 2013 Arizona State University study measured disgust triggered past women with armpit hair. It yielded responses like: "I think women who don't shave are a little gross."^[10]

Merely natural, hairy pits might exist making a comeback. Ane recent report constitute that one in four millennial women do not shave or wax their pits.

Oscar is a Chief of Public Policy student at the Academy of Oxford. He is originally from Los Angeles, California.

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