That was a fun, wonderfully illustrated book on what fashion shouldn’t be. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a free copy for my review.

I would like to thank the publisher for giving me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed reading this!

"A beautifully illustrated book about deadly fashion—real historical stories of strangulation by scarves, neckbreaking high heels, and riot-causing top hats—from the author of the popular histories Get Well Soon and It Ended Badly.

Isadora Duncan was Red
Put on a scarf; popped off her head
Fashion is silly, thought Stein
It may tear your head from your spine

A darkly comic book about some surprisingly lethal garments. Featuring stories like the untimely demise of dancer Isadora Duncan caused by her signature red scarf and the bloody riot that greeted the appearance of the first top hat, among many others, these bite-size accounts will frighten and delight. Killer Fashion includes over twenty of these short tales along with beautiful full-page illustrations. Both morbid and humorous, this book will appeal to fans of Edward Gorey and dark historical trivia."

Edward Gorey meets high fashion? SOLD!

Killer Fashion from Jennifer Wright is a fun, attractive, and informative little book. Like many others I would have enjoyed a little more though I am not sure what type of more. This isn't meant to be a collection of in-depth essays on each fashion item so I don't think she needed to go deeper. While I would have liked more items I also don't know how well one can keep coming up with quirky little verses for too many more items. So I guess I may be wishing for something that could easily have made the book less enjoyable.

The informative part of the book is as much fun as the verse and the drawings. A lot of the information isn't so much completely new (though quite a bit is) but in that category of information which contains all the interesting things we once read or heard but have since forgotten about. Having these types of tidbits brought up is almost like a nostalgic event each time. I actually called an old friend because one entry reminded me of a course where the topic was discussed and a friend and I had chatted about it over coffee later in the day. I had since forgotten the information and lost touch with my friend. Now I have touched base with an old friend thanks to a fun little entry in this book.

I would recommend this to readers who like short fun books of, for lack of a better term, trivia. If you're the inquisitive type you may find yourself looking up some additional details, that is not a bad thing, I don't think this book was intended to be a comprehensive source for such information so it is not a weakness of the book that you will need to actually look something up for yourself beyond the basic description given here. In fact, some of us consider such "work" part of the fun of trivia type books. I also think this would make an ideal gift for anyone into either such books or into fashion.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

Killer Fashion is exactly a cute story about clothes. It is the harm that can happen with clothing. It was an interesting book. The illustrations that were included were great, too. I like having the visual aids. Some of the stories were a bit out there, but interesting nonetheless.

Why DNF?  DNF (for now) because I waited too long on book and its expired/got archived probably going to finish it from the library later. Other than that I did not like the poems and it was only 56 pages but felt longer. I cannot tell if this feeling is because of the ebook format or just the book.
Liked: The art gave the story the right tone for what it is about, information given gives the reader a look into not only the deaths but the life of the people at the time period of the clothing malfunctions
Art The art is in black and white with red put in certain parts (like feathers, belts, etc)

It’s morbid, yes it is, but it’s fun, too, and original, and interesting. The author tells us about a series of clothes and garment that, through the history, marked the fashion and caused the premature demise of the people wearing them. She presents us every garment with his history: who invented it, maybe also the why, when was it worn and so on… and these short descriptions (they aren’t longer than a page) are often intriguing and entertaining… in a morbid way, yes. You have to remember that, because we are speaking of clothes who literally killed their owner. It’s not a happy thing, so if you found it disgusting or morbid or inappropriate, then this book is not for you.

And after the short story/description we have an illustration and a rhyme. And I loved them a lot. I love the arts of this book, they are really the right illustrations for this genre, I think. I found them appropriate and I loved them. They remember me a little of Tim Burton and that’s a big plus (I might be a fan of Nightmare Before Christmas, but that’s a secret, so… shh!!!) and the rhyme made me smile more than once or twice.

I didn’t read it in one sit, even if you easily do so if you want, because the book is short, we have a lot of illustrations and so on… but I liked to just read a couple of pages each time, so to savor better the stories. Some of them were quite predictable, but some of them were completely new to me. And let’s be honest! Who never wondered about all the fancy hairdo/wigs that Frenchwoman wore in the past? How could they go on with those things on the head and navigate halls full of candelabras??? (Or it was just me? Anyway… that’s not important right now!). Well, now we know that they didn’t do it without a cost.

So, if you like books with good illustrations to it, if you like humor (even if it’s dark humor) and like to learn fun facts about things, even if they are obscure and useless, this little book is the reading right for you!

Reading Jennifer Wright's Get Well Soon was one of my reading highlights of 2017, and I have recommended that book to everyone I know. I think knowing her capabilities makes this book seem less appealing. This book was cute and funny but it's just a stocking stuffer, not a wrapped gift under the tree, if you know what I mean. If you're really looking for morbid humor though, move on to one of her full-length books and get into the real nitty-gritty.

I thought that this was an excellent book! I loved the images, the historical facts were spot on and the added information given in the snippets with the pictures was great. I love reading books like this - I have given the book 5 stars - I really enjoyed it!

Super interesting, and I LOVED the illustrations, which are done entirely in white, black and red. If you like dark humor, then you'll like this. Its historical, but you don't need to have an avid interest in history or fashion to enjoy it. A super quick, fun read.

While there's nothing awfully bad about it, and it's boring, and repetitive. The writing lacks the necessary humor and wit to carry a topic like this. The poems and illustrations help, but not enough.

Killer Fashion is a fun combination of illustrations and quick facts about clothes and accessories that kill in one fashion or another. You have items that catch fire such as wigs or artificial silk while others have killed by accident - see the entries on scarves and crinolines. The book is aimed at elementary and middle school readers, but adults will enjoy the quick facts and the illustrations of the deadly fashion. A fun, quick read!

This was a clever idea, coolly executed, that I wish had been longer with more depth... I was aware of many of the fashion dangers highlighted herein - that didn't make reading about them here any less enjoyable, but it did leave me curious for more detail. The illustrations and poems were a fantastic addition to the text - darkly whimsical and often laugh-out-loud funny. Without them, this would have been three stars at most because of the brevity and lack of an underlying organizational principle beyond the premise itself...

I've seen other reviews mention that it would have been nice if the story-lets had been categorized somehow - chronologically, by body part, by type of danger represented, by men's v. women's focus. I don't know that I would have necessarily preferred one over the other, but it would have felt a little more organized if there had been something - and something that was explained, to tie the various clothing items together into more of a narrative. As it is, it feels more like anecdotes. Highly entertaining and fascinating ones, but anecdotes (as opposed to a more complete book) nevertheless... It is possible that I'm ascribing a need for more where no more was intended; if you want a cute, snarky, pithy but informative coffee table book, this does the trick nicely. But with a little more organization and connective tissue, it could have been a lot more too...

My review copy was provided by NetGalley.

2.5/5

In Killer Fashion the author shows a series of episodes in which fashion caused also violent deaths: flammable dresses, toxic substances, strangling scarves are only some of the cases referred in the book.

All episodes are also represented by an illustration and a rhyme.

The text is more a collection of curiosities than a historical analysis: the episodes are brief and not very well examined.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

'Killer Fashion' by Jennifer Wright is a darkly humorous A to Z look at dangerous fashion trends through the ages.

From artificial silk, which was flammable to wigs, which were also flammable and house lice, this book talks about fashion faux pas that actually created fatalities. Each entry is accompanied by an illustration and a poem that are reminiscent of Edward Gorey. The book finishes with a bibliography section for those who want to read more about killer ties or flammable crinolines.

I had fun reading this book, mainly because of the great illustrations and poems. This is definitely one you should get the morbid fashionista on your list.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

With its small size, PBS Mystery Theater* like cover art and blurb that included a corny yet horrific poem, I knew this wasn't going to be your average historical book on dangerous fashion trends and that it wasn't going to be deadly serious. (pun intended)

I feel like a horrible person for saying that it was entertaining and the artwork reminiscent of Edward Gorey along with the somewhat bad poetry was part and parcel of it all. Some of these people died horribly...because of fashion trends. Let that sink in for a minute. It was so cool to have a three-foot wig full of fleas and sometimes even a mouse and totally worth it to use animal fat to shine it up for the latest ball that people didn't worry about the dangers until it hit a candle in the chandelier, caught fire, and their lights went out, literally.

Many of the trends or items I was familiar with although there were a few entirely new to me or at least I hadn't registered them before. For example, I'd heard of detachable collars for men's shirts, but had no idea that there was a period of time where some of them were made of highly flammable plastic and if they didn't kill you that way, they were so stiff that just nodding off could cut off your air supply bringing on your meeting with your maker just as fast as the flames.

There is a growing number of small books that I could consider mini coffee table or gift books (6" X 7" or so) and this is one of them. Their fun, if not darkly fun, quick informative reads, often contain beautiful artwork, are completely more readable than the old school coffee table books (that let's face it are barely ever opened and seldom read, cover to cover) and don't require the huge coffee tables of yore.

Killer Fashion isn't going to say lives or change what you wear so much as it will entertain you and the illustrations alone make it a work of art in my opinion. It also has a really well-done section on sources that may end up sending you down a bunch of google rabbit holes as well like it did me.

Again, I should be bad being so entertained by such horrific things that happened to some of these people, but it's just so hard when you can, most of the time, see it coming and wonder why they didn't. I mean, if you see a woman wearing a fashion weight jacket and stilettos during a bad snow storm, you sort of have to figure she should know better, you know?

*If you'd like to wonder where I came up with the PBS Mystery Theater reference see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/... The fabulous opening sequences were done by the late Edward Gorey (1925-2000) and made me a fan for life.

FYI- I received this book from Netgalley for an honest review. That doesn't change my opinion one bit, I'm all about the book, not where I got it from.

Killer Fashion listed all kind of fashionable items that ever killed people.
Each item had two pages. One with a text explaining how it had kill and mentioning an example, the other page had an illustration and a pretty sarcastic poem.

I really enjoyed it. I learnt stuff and laughed a bit too much. The illustrations were beautifully drawn and the poems, hilarious.

A perfect sarcastic read for fashion lovers and haters, though it could have been longer!

In this graphic novel, Jennifer Wright tells us about the times throughout history where fashion has caused somebody’s death. For each item of clothing/hair/makeup we have information, an illustration and (my favourite bit) a little poem.

This dark subject is approached with brilliant wit, and it’s great fun to read. Most of the stories I’d never heard of before so it’s wonderfully fresh. This would definitely make a great gift (particularly for yourself!)

This is a fun, quick read about fashion deaths throughout history. Some were caused by the clothes, some by the manufacturing. All of the stories are accompanied by a beautiful illustration and a rhyme about the story. This would be a great table book for someone who is in the fashion or textile industries.

Oh, man, this book feeds my love for the macabre and my need for useless trivia like you would not believe.

Told in alphabetical order, this is an encyclopedia of morbid tales of clothing killing their wearer. From the obvious (corsets, asbestos, radium) to the unbelievable (do you know how many people have died from a necktie accident?) to the just plain insane (Top Hats leading to pandemonium). For such a short book, it packs one hell of a punch.