Poeticized Pallor: The Romanticized Victorian Ailment Aesthetic

19th CEntury Beauty Standards As Influenced By DEATHLY DECLINE

Pursual of the “en vogue” definition of a covetable female figure has rarely not involved some form of physical defilement, deformation, or other unhealthy modification —encouraged by a savage and unforgiving culture— be it an idealized, romanticized fever-state accompanied by sallow skin, ruby lips, protruding collarbone; neck-elongation of African tribes; or the ancient practice of Chinese foot-binding and with it barbaric female subordination. Certainly a precursor to "heroine-chic" or the glorification of such sickly appearances achieved through forms of eating disorders.

Tragic —even horrifying— and yet, as the attached article observes regarding a study on the Victorian glamorization of tuberculosis: “In making this harrowing illness into something aesthetically desirable, families could find some sense in a loss that felt too soon, too sudden, too meaningless.” Here, the review (as posted by Hyperallergic five years ago next week) of Carolyn A. Day's Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease from Bloomsbury Academic.