Why I’m Glad Kim Kardashian's Pearl-Covered Met Gala Dress Fell Apart
On oppressive fashion and our responsibility as women not to perpetuate the mistakes of the past.
Long before there was Kim Kardashian and her restricting array of Met Gala dresses, there was Joseph Hennella, a female impersonator who collapsed on stage in 1914 and died three hours later.
The tightly-laced corset he used to create the illusion of a woman had caused “kidney trouble and induced a tendency to apoplexy,” doctors said.
In his younger days, he got away with it. But at 40, with an increasing girth, his body could no longer handle the organ-constricting corset.
His case was one of many during the Victorian era when it was considered that the tighter the corset, the better, even if it deformed the skeletons of women.
Well, nothing new here. Women have been trying to fit into an unattainable body standard for centuries. We’re still doing it now.
But thanks to women before us, we no longer have to fit into a corset, the corset needs to fit onto us.
And whether we like it or not, fashion and feminism have always been tied closely together — liberation meant a desire for non-restrictive clothes.
