#Worse? My bangs were tight ringlets! The rest? Slightly wavy

[voltaspistol]

As someone whose pin straight hair began to naturally turn into a big curly poofball just as the 1990s went crazy for The Rachel haircut? The biggest cruelty wouldn't just be if you were *comfortable* in long gowns. The biggest cruelty would be if preferred long gowns but also you had zero curves in 1905 because you were a skinny teenager, having to cinch in what you could and try to discreetly pad everything else out-- Only to get married and pop out a few kids and by 1920 you finally have a bust and hips..... Just in time for fashion to decide that if you have tits and ass, you don't get nice clothes.

Pour one out for women who lived through at least part of the Victorian and Edwardian eras and then had to wear 1920s clothing because keeping relatively current was an aspect of respectability

Like yeah sure, some found it fun and dived in with gusto. Some had not enjoyed the previous decades and liked this one. Good for them

But imagine having lived with AND liked actually supportive corsets, and elegant lines that acknowledged things like Breasts and Hips, and beautiful decoration, and hairstyles where you could learn one go-to and do it every day with minimal professional help (unless you were rich)

And then being told “oh sorry now you have to look like a barrel unless you want to bind your breasts and develop an eating disorder. we call this a corset still but it is basically proto-Spanx. Please have the head of a Lego minifig, hair-wise; you’ll have to pay for regular hairdresser visits if you want the MOST socially celebrated iteration thereof. Here is a plastic geometric bangle; have fun”

(Obviously that’s highly subjective and non-comprehensive but it WAS a huge switch to almost the opposite of what came before the late 1910s-ish. And if you happened to prefer that Before…)

God I would start Murdering