How a Disease Shape Fashion Trends

During the COVID-xix pandemic, masks are having a bit of a moment. They've gone from functional to fashionable to controversial, all in the span of about two months. But it'south not the commencement fourth dimension style has been tied to an epidemic.

If you believe the memes on social media, hoop skirts in the 1800s were the original "social distancing," and the heavy, veiled hats from the early 1900s that completely covered one's caput were to prevent contracting the Spanish flu.

"That'due south really to protect you when you lot're riding in a auto," clarified Katie Knowles, curator with Colorado Country University'south Avenir Museum of Pattern and Merchandising. She said in that location are a lot of misconceptions almost fashion and the function it played during diverse epidemics throughout history.

The hoop skirt? That was all nearly social distancing, but not for wellness reasons. It was designed to keep men from getting too close to women, who at the time were beginning to exit in the general public more, Knowles said.

"The purpose of the hoop skirt was not any kind of concern about illness," she said. "It merely has that kind of unintended consequence."

But there are plenty of bodily connections between epidemics and the world of manner and textiles. Some odder than others.

In Europe in the 1500s, men wore hose as the preferred garment on their legs, Knowles said. They also wore a codpiece, a strip of strategically placed fabric that could be laced up to make using the restroom easier.

Codpiece.Tizian_081_0.jpg — "Portrait of Charles V With a Dog" (1533)

But equally men began returning from the Americas, in addition to bringing back corn and tobacco, they also brought syphilis.

"Some of the treatments that they were using at the fourth dimension for syphilis, information technology could cause staining of the hose," Knowles said. "And so you lot commencement to see padding being used."

And the padded codpiece was built-in. As the illness spread, then did the style trend, becoming more and more elaborate — using jeweled embellishments and various materials like metallic.

"The ascent of popularity as a fashion statement correlates with the spread of syphilis as a affliction across Europe, and as immunity builds up, it slows down," Knowles said. "And every bit it slows downwardly, the padded codpiece falls out of mode."

Wearable and textiles have also been instrumental in the spread of disease.

The bubonic plague — as well referred to as the "Blackness Death: — occurred in the 14th century, spreading forth the Silk Road trading network through Asia, Africa and Europe. It killed an estimated 50 1000000 people.

"The movement of the people was definitely tied to a global trade organization," Knowles said.

Silk was a relatively new textile and had become very popular amongst Europeans, she said. The increased need opened up boosted trade routes, introducing the disease to more than locations.

But mode's role wasn't always adventitious.

"The smallpox episode that most people are referring to was real," said Elizabeth Fenn, a distinguished professor at the University of Colorado - Bedrock. Fenn specializes in Native American history and the history of epidemic disease.

"It took place in 1763," she said. "In the aftermath of the French and Indian State of war — sometimes chosen the Seven Years War — at a place called Fort Pitt, which we now know of as Pittsburgh."

Following negotiations with British soldiers, the Native Americans asked for a gift as a sign of good organized religion. A trader named William Trent after wrote of the exchange, stating: "Out of our regard to them, nosotros gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. We promise information technology will accept the desired effect."

Since the disease was already in the area, Fenn says it's impossible to ascertain if the blankets were indeed the cause. Still, smallpox did ravage the native communities around Fort Pitt at the aforementioned time the blankets were given.

"What's interesting is this is the 18th century, this is pre-germ theory," she said. "This is a century before Robert Koch discovers the Anthrax bacillus nether his microscope."

Fifty-fifty and so, people had an intuitive concept of contagion.

paul_f__rst__der_doctor_schnabel_von_rom__coloured_version_.png — Engraving of Doc Schnabel, a plague doctor in Rome circa 1656.

"It's fair to call it 'germ warfare,' or 'biological warfare,' although that phrasing would have been anachronistic," Fenn said. "It's not what people would have called information technology at the fourth dimension. They would have seen smallpox as more than like a poison. I would say it'southward the earliest fully documented account in American history."

Going dorsum even further to the 1600s, the "uniform" of plague doctors spoke to an intuitive agreement of epidemiology, Knowles said. Traveling from business firm to firm, the doctors could be identified by their heavy waxed leather coats, long canes and broad-brimmed hats. They also wore a birdlike mask with a long beak.

"Often at that place was a bloom stuck in the bill," she said. "They idea that bad odors that were in the surround around the illness were what was spreading the disease."

Today, we are once once again working to understand dissimilar materials, how they may transmit disease, and how they may help forbid information technology.

"In full general, I think this crisis (will) brand people think a lot of things differently," said Yan Vivian Li. The CSU acquaintance professor is leading the academy's Smart Textiles and Nanotechnology Enquiry Group.

Li, along with grad pupil Tony Vindell, is conducting tests on a diverseness of not-woven fabrics, similar to coffee or vacuum-pocketbook filters, from Colorado manufacturers.

The hope is that the materials will exist strong and safe enough to be mass-produced in-state to brand much-needed PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), similar medical gowns. CSU's textile lab is the but identify in the land capable of doing this level of testing.

While textiles take long been kind of an afterthought, Li said they've now go ane of the almost important things in the fight confronting the novel coronavirus. That could somewhen change what we look for in clothing.

It would no longer exist simply about keeping you lot warm and comfortable, but about keeping you safe and healthy, she said.

This moment in history may exist a turning indicate for manufacturers, Li said, causing them to look at clothing and textiles that do more simply look nice. It's something she's already been researching.

"1 of the things I've been in the past five years developing — https://youtu.exist/WSuVjhbEb-I">fabric that changes color when leaner is detected," she said.

Li'south already added a new element to her work — looking into creating material that changes color when a virus is detected.