From Head to Toe: Bound Feet, Bathing Suits, and Other Bizarre and Beautiful Things - Softcover

Weaver, Janice

 
9780887766541: From Head to Toe: Bound Feet, Bathing Suits, and Other Bizarre and Beautiful Things
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0887766544 ISBN 13: 9780887766541
Verlag: Tundra Books, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

Shortlisted for the Rocky Mountain Book Award

Included on VOYA’s ninth annual Nonfiction Honor List

Named Notable Book by the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award in the intermediate nonfiction category


Did you know that:
• in some parts of sixteenth-century Europe, men wore their beards so long that they had to wrap the ends around their waists like a belt to be able to walk?
• the high heel shoe caught on because it was the perfect solution to the problem of hopelessly muddy and waste-filled streets in cities like London and Paris?
• women have, at various times, used soot, ground ants’ eggs, beet juice, and poisonous lead as makeup?

Throughout history we have bound our feet until they broke, piled our necks with jewelry until our chests collapsed, cinched our waists in corsets until we couldn’t breathe. Why do we do these things to ourselves?

From Head to Toe travels across thousands of years and through countless cultures and countries to explore the story of fashion in its weirdest, wildest, and most wonderful forms.

Whimsical illustrations, sidebars, “quick hit” margin quips, and a useful index round out this fun-filled tour of fashion history.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Janice Weaver has been working with books all her life – first as an editor, and now as a writer. Her first book, Building America, allowed her to pursue a life-long love of architecture. In From Head to Toe, she indulges her passion for outlandish fashion trends, though she herself wears comfortable, sensible shoes. Janice Weaver lives in Toronto.

Francis Blake has been an illustrator for as long as he can remember and his artwork appears in magazines, books, and advertising campaigns across North America, Europe, and the Far East. His original paintings and drawings are in private collections as far apart as Melbourne, Toronto, and Wigan. Francis Blake lives in London, England with an increasingly demanding and occasionally very bad-tempered cat called Sufi.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Shortlisted for the Rocky Mountain Book Award
Included on "VOYA's ninth annual Nonfiction Honor List
Named Notable Book by the International Reading Association's Children's Book Award in the intermediate nonfiction category
Did you know that:
- in some parts of sixteenth-century Europe, men wore their beards so long that they had to wrap the ends around their waists like a belt to be able to walk?
- the high heel shoe caught on because it was the perfect solution to the problem of hopelessly muddy and waste-filled streets in cities like London and Paris?
- women have, at various times, used soot, ground ants' eggs, beet juice, and poisonous lead as makeup?
Throughout history we have bound our feet until they broke, piled our necks with jewelry until our chests collapsed, cinched our waists in corsets until we couldn't breathe. Why do we do these things to ourselves?
"From Head to Toe travels across thousands of years and through countless cultures and countries to explore the story of fashion in its weirdest, wildest, and most wonderful forms.
Whimsical illustrations, sidebars, "quick hit" margin quips, and a useful index round out this fun-filled tour of fashion history.

Aus dem Klappentext

Named Notable Book by the International Reading Association s Children s Book Award in the intermediate nonfiction category

Nominated for The Rocky Mountain Book Award (An Alberta Children's Choice Book Award)


Did you know that:
in some parts of sixteenth-century Europe, men wore their beards so long that they had to wrap the ends around their waists like a belt to be able to walk?
the high heel shoe caught on because it was the perfect solution to the problem of hopelessly muddy and waste-filled streets in cities like London and Paris?
women have, at various times, used soot, ground ants eggs, beet juice, and poisonous lead as makeup?

Throughout history we have bound our feet until they broke, piled our necks with jewelry until our chests collapsed, cinched our waists in corsets until we couldn t breathe. Why do we do these things to ourselves?

From Head to Toe travels across thousands of years and through countless cultures and countries to explore the story of fashion in its weirdest, wildest, and most wonderful forms.

Whimsical illustrations, sidebars, quick hit margin quips, and a useful index round out this fun-filled tour of fashion history.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

TOPPING IT ALL OFF

Samson was a man whose strength was legendary. The Bible tells us that he could fight off whole armies single-handedly, and that he once killed a thousand of his enemies, the Philistines, with the jawbone of an ass. Even today, people associate him with superhuman power.

Because of a vow sworn by his parents before his birth, Samson was never to drink wine or eat the grapes it was made from, touch a dead body, or most famously, cut a hair on his head. He didn’t take those vows too seriously, however, and in time he broke all but the last one. This he kept because he knew his hair was the source of his great strength.

Unfortunately, Samson wasn’t much better at choosing women than he was at keeping promises. When he fell in love with Delilah, a Philistine beauty, she tricked him into revealing the secret of his strength and then cut off all his hair while he slept. When he woke up, he was set upon by Philistine soldiers, who easily captured the newly shorn Samson, blinded him, and put him to work as a slave. He was often placed on display, to be mocked and taunted by the Philistine people. It was a terrible life of daily humiliation and torture that offered Samson no hope of escape until his hair eventually grew back. At last reinvested with the might of several men, he was able to topple the walls of a great temple full of Philistines. His strength had returned, but at a terrible price. Three thousand people – including Samson himself – were killed.

***

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Samson’s story reminds us of the great power we attach to our hair. In his case, the power was physical. For the rest of us, it might be power of a subtler kind: an ability to attract mates, a sign that we are young and healthy, evidence of our wealth and position in society. We have, for centuries, spent fortunes in both money and time on our hair – cutting it, styling it, shaving it off and letting it grow, curling it and coloring it, even hiding it away beneath hats, scarves, and wigs.

Our obsession with our hair goes back to prehistoric times. Primitive men liked to smear their locks with mud or clay and tie on small trophies for added effect. For many ancient people, whose style of dress tended to be simple and unadorned, hair provided an important opportunity to display status and individuality. Hairpins, wigs, extensions, bleaches, waxes, and oils were all used to accentuate the positive and mask the negative. The Egyptians even experimented with treatments for that fear of men both ancient and modern: baldness. One “cure” advised sufferers to coat their heads with chopped lettuce leaves to stimulate growth. Bald men were also encouraged to rub their pates with the fats of lions, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, cats, serpents, and goats. There was no advice on how they were to acquire these fats – or how long they had to wear what must surely have been a pretty unpleasant concoction.

The Egyptians were a vain lot all around. If baldness wasn’t an issue, they found other hair-related worries to occupy their minds. We know, for example, that they were among the first to use dye to cover tell-tale gray. As early as 3400 B.C., they were apparently using henna, a dye extracted from a small shrub, to give their hair a reddish hue. Indigo, another dye derived from plant material, was applied to produce that blue-black color we often associate with these ancient people.

But the Egyptians were not the only ones to understand the value of an attractive head of hair. The Babylonians spared no expense in their quest to look good, powdering their locks with real gold dust. Ancient Saxons dyed their hair blue using woad, yet another dye made from a plant; Saxon women also used an ointment of burnt bear claws and swallow droppings to give their hair a glossy sheen. The Romans were so fond of their hair that it took on an almost spiritual significance. Some washed their locks only once a year, fearful that too much cleansing would scrub away the gods who protected them. And the first haircut was of such ritual importance to Roman boys that the auspicious event was recorded at city hall.

The idea that hair has some kind of magical or spiritual significance has persisted in different cultures – including ours – through the centuries. Sikhs, for instance, view hair as sacred. Throughout their lives, devout followers of Sikhism are prohibited from removing even a single hair from their bodies. They would no more cut their hair than they would remove an arm or a leg. For the ancient Greeks, hair was such a strong symbol that people would shave their heads when in mourning or decorate their doors with a lock from the deceased. We practice a less morbid version of this act of remembrance when we carry about a piece of a loved one’s hair in a locket or press a baby’s hair in a memory book.

To shave a person’s head against his will, as happened to Samson, also has great significance. Almost always, it’s an act meant to humiliate. Since ancient times, victorious armies have shaved their conquered enemies bald, a ritual that had the dual effect of degrading them and announcing their defeat to the world. Even though we have today lost many of the rites associated with hair, this is one that survives. We still shave the heads of prisoners and soldiers as the first step in a campaign to break them down and rebuild them as better models. And in France after the Second World War, women who had collaborated with the Nazis were shaved bald and paraded through the streets, their humiliation and betrayal on display for all to see.

***

Flipping Your Wig

Of course, if you have been shaved or otherwise lost your mane, you always have the option of hiding your hairless state with a hat, a scarf, or the ever-popular wig. Wigs, especially, have a long history in fashion. The ancient Egyptians, both men and women, were especially fond of them and took them along even into the afterworld. For them, wigs served a practical purpose: they often shaved all the hair off their heads (and even their entire bodies), and so needed something to cover themselves with. This was not vanity but a logical solution to the very real problem of an unforgiving African sun. Wigs were removable and allowed for better air circulation, so they were both cooler to wear than real hair and a good alternative to the sweaty, greasy locks that were common in the days before shampoo and daily showers.

Among the women of ancient Rome, blonde hair was the thing to have. This look became popular around 1 A.D., when Roman gladiators returned from northern Europe with fair-haired slaves they had taken as the spoils of war. Seeing the amorous excitement these flaxen-haired women produced in their husbands, Roman wives began to look for ways to go blonde themselves. Some tried dyes made from yellow flowers, while those who could afford it simply dusted their locks with powdered gold. But for many, the easiest solution was also the most obvious: they merely cut off the locks of the captured slaves and had that hair made into thick, full wigs for themselves.

Wigs didn’t really catch on in most of Europe until the 1600s, and then they were worn almost exclusively by men. (Most women didn’t begin wearing them until the next century.) They first became popular in France, when Louis XIII disguised his baldness with a wig of dark, rich curls that fell gracefully past his shoulders and down his back. The craze soon spread to other parts of Europe, and wig-wearing remained fashionable there (and eventually in America) for the next 150 years.

Louis’s curls were meant to be taken for his own, but soon the trend was to wear white powdered wigs, sometimes called periwigs. The white color had...

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Verlag
Tundra Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0887766544
ISBN 13 
9780887766541
Einband
Taschenbuch
Zeichner
Blake Francis
Anzahl der Seiten
80
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Verantwortliche Person
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