The Top Ten Fashion Events in the United State

Did you always notice that the buttons on a shirt are on reverse sides for men and women? Curious to notice out how Earth State of war 2 changed women's shaving habits? Ever thought about why men stopped wearing high heels? And what makes the fourth finger on our left mitt the "ring finger"?

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

10 Why Women Shave Their Legs

Women have not always shaved their legs. Indeed, nether the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who was a trendsetter of her time, women weren't expected to remove body hair. Instead, the mode 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 modify?

The simple respond is Globe War Ii. During the war, the Us experienced a stockings shortage as the government redirected the use of nylon from stockings to state of war parachutes. For women, the nylon shortage meant having to bare their legs in public. To exist accounted socially adequate, women began to shave their legs. Later on the war, as skirts became shorter, the trend stuck around.^[1]

nine Why Girls Wear Pink And Boys Wear Blue

We take all been there. At a infant shower, the color 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 mostly wore flowing white dresses co-ordinate to University of Maryland historian Jo B. Paoletti, who wrote Pink and Blueish: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America. "White cotton wool tin can be bleached," she says, which made information technology a applied choice.

In the 1900s, colors began to exist used every bit gender signifiers. Only the colors did not mean what they do now. For case, a June 1918 commodity from a popular way mag declared:

"The generally accepted dominion is pink for the boys and bluish for the girls. The reason is that pink, beingness a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the male child, while blueish, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."^[ii]

All the same, Paoletti says that these trends weren't particularly widespread.

Around 1985, that all changed with the rise of prenatal testing, which allowed parents to decide the gender of the kid. As expectant parents learned the sex of their babies, they began to store for "girl" or "boy" trade. Retailers noticed and individualized clothing to increase their sales.

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

8 Why Women's And Men's Buttons Are On Contrary Sides

Odds are you ain a button-up shirt. Take a look at which side the buttons are on. If yous're a human, chances are the buttons are on the right. If y'all're a woman, you'll likely observe your buttons on the left.

There'southward an interesting historical reason for this. Melanie M. Moore, who created women'southward blouse brand Elizabeth & Clarke, explains: "When buttons were invented in the 13th century, they were, similar most new technology, very expensive. [ . . . ] Wealthy women back then did not dress themselves—their lady'southward maid did. Since most people were right-handed, this fabricated information technology easier for someone standing across from yous to push your clothes."^[three]

Every bit for men'southward shirts, fashion historian Chloe Chapin traces the fashion quirk to the armed services. "Admission to a weapon . . . practically trumped everything," she says, noting that a firearm tucked inside a shirt would be easier to reach from the ascendant side.

7 Why Men Stopped Wearing Loftier Heels

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

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

Almost the 15th century, when Farsi-European cultural exchange heightened, European aristocrats adopted high-heeled shoes equally a symbol of their wealth. According to Semmelhack, elites have e'er used impractical clothing to showcase their privileged status.

Fast-forward to the Enlightenment era, which ostensibly brought with information technology an appreciation for the applied, 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 so seen in terms of irrational style choices like the loftier heel.

6 Why We Paint Our Nails

If you thought the manicure was a new phenomenon, y'all would exist wrong. Did you know that the world'due south oldest manicure set, made from solid gilt 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 as well 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, then they accept tended to signal an elite social status.

But Shapiro admits that nail trends come and become. During the 1920s and '30s, the French manicure was in. Notwithstanding, during the 1960s, women preferred a more natural wait and rarely painted their nails.

5 Why Long Hair Became A Matter For Women

While pilus trends have fallen in and out of fashion, one thing across cultures and millennia has remained fairly constant: the expectation that women would have long hair. We've seen information technology from the delineation of a long-haired Aphrodite to St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, in which he wrote, "If a adult female has long hair, information technology is a glory to her."

Kurt Stenn, writer of Hair: A Man History, says that women about e'er have longer hair than men. But why?

According to Stenn, a old professor of pathology and dermatology at Yale, pilus is highly communicative. It sends messages about sexuality, religious behavior, and power. In particular, he believes that long hair can communicate health and wealth.

"To have long pilus, you take to be healthy," Stenn says. "You have to eat well, have no diseases, no infectious organisms, you take to have good rest and practice." He adds, "To have long hair, you have to accept your needs in life taken intendance of, which implies you accept the wealth to do it."^[six]

four Why Some People Sag Their Pants

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

Similar bans have surfaced from New Jersey to Tennessee. The rationale behind this sort of legislation usually goes something like this: Sagging represents a dangerous lack of self-respect and an embrace of gang civilization. It is a symbol of moral pass up.

But 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 first is that inmates, prohibited from wearing belts in prison house, often sagged their uniforms. And so they continued the style after returning domicile. The second theory is that convicts wore their pants low as a means of letting other prisoners know they were sexually bachelor.^[seven]

3 Why We Wear Wedding Bands On The 'Band Finger'

"With this ring, I thee wed." The ring is slipped onto the 4th finger of the left hand, and there y'all have it—a bride and groom! But have y'all ever asked yourself why we slip our wedding bands onto the "ring finger"?

The tradition can be traced back to Roman times. The Romans believed that a vein ran directly from the heart to the ring finger. They named it the vena amoris ("vein of dear"). Naturally, they idea information technology'd be plumbing fixtures to place one's hymeneals band on that finger. Quite romantic!

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

2 Why Men Wearable Ties

Ties. They don't go along u.s.a. warm, aren't practical, and are frequently uncomfortable. So why do men wearable them?

About neckwear historians hold that the necktie grew in prominence effectually the fourth dimension of the Thirty Years' State of war in the 1600s. To fight the war, Rex Louis 13 employed Croation mercenaries who wore a slice of cloth effectually their necks.

While these early neckties were largely functional—they tied the tops of their jackets—King Louis Thirteen liked them as sartorial adornments. Indeed, he fabricated these early neckties mandatory dress for formal gatherings and named them after the Croatian mercenaries: cravate. To this day, that means necktie in France.

Curiously, Croatia celebrates national Cravat Day every October 18. In 2003, they commemorated the holiday by tying an 808-meter (2,650 ft) tie around the historic Roman amphitheater in Pula.^[9]

one Why Women Shave Their Armpits

Women and men have had armpit hair for millennia. So why do roughly 95 per centum of women shave or wax their underarms? Who woke up 1 day and decided that women with armpit pilus are unsightly?

Well, we can thank a 1915 Harper's Bazaar advertisement for that. Before and so, women with bushy pits were the norm. But the ad told women that modern dancing and sleeveless dresses were the next big thing and that "objectionable hair" was out. The advertisement featured a photograph of a young woman in a sleeveless apparel. Her arms were biconvex over her head, revealing perfectly clear armpits.

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

But natural, hairy pits might be making a comeback. One contempo report found that one in four millennial women do not shave or wax their pits.

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

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