Brevi quadri che, in maniera vivace e con l'aiuto di illustrazioni ironiche e originali, illustrano alcuni dei terrificanti pericoli (e più che pericoli, spesso: veri e propri danni) della moda attraverso i secoli.
Letale a volte per chi la produceva, a volte per chi la indossava, a volte per chi, innocente, passava accanto a damigelle e signori alla moda.
Purtroppo per chi come me ha letto il dettagliatissimo (e inquietantissimo!) Fashion victims di Alison Matthews Davies questo volumetto, superficiale e poco approfondito, ha ben poco interesse, se non per le originali illustrazioni.

This book is so fun, combining the macabre and dark side of fashion trends with Edward Gorey-esque art and limericks, truly it was a book after my own heart. I love the art and the snippets of information, also really appreciate the massive sources section that allows me to find out more about these interesting bits of history.

This was a fun book detailing a lot of the horrible [and sometimes downright stupid] ways that people have endangered themselves for the name of fashion. I enjoyed the illustrations, the entries were short and informative, and there's even a bibliography in the back if you want to do some more reading. However I've got two complaints with this. The first is kind of nit-picky but I would have liked for the fashions to be in something resembling chronological order so we could see more of the evolution of one thing to another rather than just random entries.

The second is that while I know this was just supposed to be a short fun work I feel like there could have been some entry in the front or back about how even though there are a few fashions in here specific to men 'killer fashion' is mostly a gendered phenomenon and is rooted both in seeing women as more decoration than actual people and in some cases even purposely restricting their movements to make it harder to exert / defend themselves physically. I feel like this is an important thing to touch on when talking about this kind of history even in a work like this and was a bit put off that it wasn't even mentioned in passing.

"One only has to give a dress of Chardonnet silk to your mother-in-law, she approaches the fire, she burns, and you are rid of her."
A delightfully & charmingly gruesome dictionary that proves the adage 'beauty is pain'! The illustrations & couplet rhymes between each entry are nothing short of adorable, and there's a lot of knowledge packed into the entries themselves. Everyone knows about the deadly reputation of corsets, but what about crinolines causing women to fall off cliffs by getting caught in gusts of wind? Or that influenza was once nicknamed 'the muslin disease'? Truly, my only complaint about this book is that's it does not last longer!

Without preamble, Jennifer Wright jumps right into the world of fashion and it's lesser know causes of violence and death.
With whimsical drawings and little rhymes, Wright manages to make the macabre less depressing and very interesting. You'll learn about death due to scarves, high heels and more. Don't believe here? Check the sources!
Interesting and darkly fun, Killer Fashion is a gift for every fashionista!

This book was informative and hilarious. This book really is a great example of how different our world is than the one that was around even a hundred years ago. The book lists many different former styles and how they killed people. That doesn't sound funny at all but, besides just the facts, the way the author writes, includes a funny poem, and the illustrations that goes with the blurb on each page just all adds up to a funny, quirky read. Some of the situations are funny on their own but the author gave them all an excellent spin as well. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would love to see more like it.

So this was an interesting read. It has poetry and illustrations. It also has a lot of deadly fashion history. It includes information on everything from lead makeup and high heels to wigs and artificial silk. A few of the facts I knew but for the most part alot of the information about particular items of clothing were new. I really enjoyed the book.

A quick and quirky look at the various ways humans' bizarre need to be fashionable has resulted in illness, injury and death. Full of trivia tidbits and gallows humor, Killer Fashion shows what happens when people are just DYING to be beautiful.

A riotous look at all the crazy things humans have done (and continue to do) through the ages to look attractive. From poisoning ourselves with lead make-up, squeezing our internal organs with corsets and strangling ourselves with collars and ties, this is a lively little book with quirky drawings and poems accompanying the text. I only wish it had been longer!

👠 Fashionably Fatal Friday the 13th Feature 🎩

While I strongly believe that clothing's not supposed to hurt you, there are plenty of people that don't seem to have a problem with suffering in the name of fashion. There are heels that ruin your feet, jeans so skinny the logo button ends up imprinted on your belly, clothes you can't sit down in, clothes that make you sweat, clothes that make you freeze, and ties that should come with a choking hazard warning.

But what lengths would you go to in order to pull off the latest style?

Is a fashionable death in your future?

I loved Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves, and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History so much that it has inspired me to break out in poetry to give you a taste of some of the wonderfully wacky causes of death in this book.

Disclaimer: I know some of these 'rhymes' don't exactly rhyme but you will never, ever hear me claim that I think I'm a poet.


Radium's glow makes you look hot
Until your jaw begins to rot

Your fancy bra's underwire
May conduct that lightning's ire

Are you ready to break your toes
To fit into tiny shoes like those?

Dye turns dark hair pale
Until your kidneys fail

Lice crawl all around your wig
And that mouse is mighty big

A man lay dying in the gutter
"Blame that skirt", they heard him utter

Breathe in those toxic fumes
And you'll soon go looney tunes

Fake silky attire was a phase
Until it set the room ablaze

Wear makeup laced with lead
And you'll soon look pretty dead


With plenty of opportunities to die gruesome deaths for both men and women, for wearers and makers of the often toxic or flammable items, Jennifer Wright's quirky book is perfect for those strange and unusual kindred spirits of mine who gravitate towards equally strange and unusual books.

While I had heard of some of these torture devices and death traps disguised as clothes and accessories throughout history prior to reading this book, I hadn't read them in such an entertaining way before. I also learned a lot more than I would have expected from a book that's under 60 pages.

With quotes from such sources as newspapers, a magazine and a medical journal, and including citations that allow those of us who are so inclined to delve deeper, Killer Fashion is one of those books I got a lot more morbid enjoyment out of than I should probably admit.

Each fashion item is allocated two pages. One page has a paragraph ranging from a few sentences to a page of information. The opposite page has a four line poem under an almost full page illustration. Using black, white, grey and red (of course!), Brenna Thummler's illustrations ramp up the quirky factor nicely. Skeletal flapper girls dancing on stage? Brilliant! Just brilliant!

I definitely need to read this book again and investigate some of the books referenced throughout. I'm saying this with the greatest respect to the book, its author and illustrator; this would be a perfect gift book for the weirdo in your life. I would love it if someone bought a copy for me!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley (thank you so much to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the opportunity) in exchange for honest feedback.

A quick and darkly funny read that traces the trends of fashion history - and each of their dangers. From garments all over the world, to the items synonymous with different eras of history, Killer Fashion reveals the risks that even the most mundane of them pose to the person wearing them. I mean, who knew that high heels, collars and even scarves had the power to kill someone?
In just 58 pages, Jennifer Wright leaves the reader with a new perspective and more knowledge on the topic of fashion throughout history, in the easy-breezy way that only humorous books like Killer Fashion seems to be able to. With the help of jaunty verses and illustrations, it manages to convey truly awful historic events in a way that both, explores their brutality and turns them on their head to give them a darkly-funny edge.
This book is the perfect way to chuckle along to and, with the format that it is in, no matter how many times that you’ve read it, you’ll be able to come back to it over and over again.