5 Miserable Times in History That Actually Helped Style

Image via Complex Original

Margaret Thatcher’s England created a society haunted by unemployment, poverty, and oppressive social conservatism. But Thatcherism also gave way to a whole generation of Thatcheristas! Perhaps driven slightly mad by the ubiquitous dim-witted patriotism, the late ’70s and ’80s brought a cacophony of tweeds, plaids, and wacky sweaters (not to mention a boom in nouveau millinery) to the U.K., turning the classic English country look unhinged.

With the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1918 came the end of fun as Americans then knew it. No more drinking cordials and riding your servant’s horse backwards. No more slugging your weekly rum ration in an hour, then stripping naked and going to see a matinee of Nosferatu wearing nothing but a barrel. And how were you supposed to crank out the Great American Novel? Talent and pluck?! But while industrious Americans attempted to spin liquor out of bathtub water and horse hay, they also set off a bold, new fashion revolution, as women began forgoing corsets and long dresses in favor of loose-fitting, knee-grazing glitzy garb and cropped hair. If you can’t drink your danger, you can always wear it!

Talk about a bad queen: Mary Stuart spent her life escalating tensions between Scotland and England, she oversaw the tumultuous deterioration of the relationships between Catholics and Protestants, and she married her cousin and probably had him murdered. But she looked damn good doing it! Her desire to look pious and virtuous—even victimized—meant she broke new ground in lace ruffs and cute little hats with furry pom-poms. Her sleeve game was Vetements-worthy, and her capes would make André Leon Talley salivate. She may have been executed, but her style shifted royal portrait standards forever. 

Marie Antoinette also took a page from the unaware, stylish female leader playbook (a must-read for everyone!), spending unfathomable amounts of taxpayer dollars on her cupcake-colored sartorial confections and shoes. Her sense of style has reverberated throughout the rest of history, but in the immediate aftermath of her execution, the high-strung operations of royal style were democratized. The fashion industry that had previously been used exclusively for royals was free to dress the bourgeoisie of France, bringing a well-dressed middle and upper-middle class into existence for the first time in history.

The Lower East Side of New York was just as disgusting 120 years ago as it is today—though, instead of catching cholera, you’ll now catch something unprintable from a man in a fedora named cHazz. But just a few blocks uptown, Edith Wharton and her giddy pack—think bottle service types, but wearing bustles—were creating New York’s first fashion scene in opulent gowns, often copied from or inspired by the best stuff in Paris. If history shows us anything, it’s that when the going gets tough for most of society, the rich can distract themselves with a trip to whatever the day’s equivalent of Zara is.