Consumptive chic : a history of beauty, fashion, and disease
Carolyn A. Day (Author)
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a tubercular 'moment' in which perceptions of the consumptive disease became inextricably tied to contemporary concepts of beauty, playing out in the clothing fashions of the day. With the ravages of the illness widely regarded as conferring beauty on the sufferer, it became commonplace to regard tuberculosis as a positive affliction, one to be emulated in both beauty practices and dress. While medical writers of the time believed that the fashionable way of life of many women actually rendered them susceptible to the disease, Carolyn A. Day investigates the deliberate and widespread flouting of admonitions against these fashion practices in the pursuit of beauty. Through an exploration of contemporary social trends and medical advice revealed in medical writing, literature and personal papers, Consumptive Chic uncovers the intimate relationship between fashionable women's clothing, and medical understandings of the illness. Illustrated with over 40 full color fashion plates, caricatures, medical images, and photographs of original garments, this is a compelling story of the intimate relationship between the body, beauty, and disease - and the rise of 'tubercular chic'
eBook, English, 2017
Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2017
History
1 online resource (x, 189 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (some color)
9781350009394, 1350009393
990777286
Introduction. Constructing tuberculosis ; The social context ; Scholarly construction of tuberculosis
The approach to illness. Tuberculosis mortality ; Anatomico-pathological approach to disease
The curious case of consumption : a family affair. Contagious? ; The constitution ; Palliate rather than cure
Exciting consumption : the causes and culture of an illness. The personal environment : status symbol ; Ephemeral causes of consumption ; Nervous consumptives ; Civilizing consumption
Morality, mortality, and romanticizing death. The consumptive performance : resignation in the face of death ; Romanticizing consumption ; The illness intelligence ; Consumptive Keats
The angel of death in the household. That sentimental feeling : feminizing consumption ; Consumptive marriage ; The reproductive body ; Sensibility and feminine character
Tragedy and tuberculosis : the Siddons story. A beautiful predisposition ; That lothario Lawrence ; The decline of Maria ; A beautiful ending?
Dying to be beautiful : the consumptive chic. From corpulent to consumptive chic ; Fashionable illness ; Sentimental beauty
The agony of conceit : clothing and consumption. Classical consumptive and the dangers of fashionable life ; Consumptive corsetry and romantic fashion ; Tubercular and tight the sentimental way
Epilogue: The end of consumptive chic
Concluding the fashion
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