March 26, 2024 • 7 mins
Why do so many of us have the need to be trendy, to do or say things we think make us look as cool as the people we’re copying? Trends through the ages have included everything from style statements to full-on body modification.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We all like to feel cool, right, But how far
are you willing to go to feel like you're part
of the popular crowd? How about walking around bent in
half because it made you look fragile and afflicted, or
having mismatched heels on your shoes so you'd walk with
a limp. Oh laugh. Today folks get giant butt implants
to look like a Kardashian. I'm Patty Steele. Weird trends
(00:24):
just to be cool. Next on the backstory. We're back
with the backstory. What is it about an awful lot
of us that makes us so desperate to be a
part of the cool set that we're willing to do
or wear almost anything to feel like an insider. That's
what trends are all about. Take a look at more
(00:47):
recent trends. In the nineteen sixties, women went from that curvy,
platinum blonde look of the fifties to the frighteningly skinny
look of supermodel Twiggy, who weighed just ninety pounds. That
look drove, by the way way too many young girls
into anorexia, although Twiggy says she just had a speedy
metabolism and ate like a horse, at least like a
(01:08):
ninety pound horse. That super skinny look had a resurgence
in the early nineties for a much more sinister reason.
It was the advent of heroin chic, with supermodel Cape
Moss the most well known of that bunch. It was
a look that went beyond models and included the grunge
world of Kurt Cobain and so many other musicians that
(01:29):
eventually lost their lives to it. By the two thousands,
while we still worshiped tall, thin models, we started to
embrace a curvier, more natural look thanks to stars like
Jennifer Lopez. Then all hell broke loose when the Kardashians
and their super sized rear ends arrived. Suddenly, women who
(01:50):
didn't have a lot of junk in the trunk were
actually getting oversized butt implants to go along with their
oversized breast implants. But none of this does desire to
change what we were born with. Is new. Now it's
the fifteen hundreds, and you want to look like the
royals who could afford tons of very expensive sugar, which
(02:10):
naturally rotted their teeth, so you purposely blacken your teeth
to look shishi. Some doctors at the time would even
pull blackened teeth out of dead bodies and use them
as primitive implants for their ohso trendy patients. And teeth
blackening wasn't just in Europe. In fact, it was way
more common for hundreds of years in the Far East,
(02:32):
including Japan and India, but also in a lot of
South American cultures. Why they saw it as a sign
of beauty and sexual maturity, and in some cases because
they felt it differentiated us from animals. And then there
was a long time trend in China that sounds unbelievably tortuous.
(02:53):
For centuries, parents would repeatedly break and then fold the
feet of their baby girls to gree a tiny little
feet that they felt was the epitome of femininity. If
you had tiny bound feet, it showed that you came
from a wealthy family and wouldn't need to work in
the fields. Your feet would be wrapped with long ribbons
(03:13):
to keep them from growing. And if your toes withered
and fell off, better yet major feet even smaller. You
then would wear what they called lotus shoes, which cupped
your tiny feet in what looked like a lotus flower bud.
Now imagine walking around in heavy fitted clothing and spending
your day leaning forward at the waist like you were
(03:35):
in the middle of bowing. Talk about a major backache.
You're doing a thing called the Grecian bend, a popular
trend in England from the late eighteen twenties to the
early eighteen eighties. The effect was created by a massive
amount of bunched up fabric positioned above your rear like
a bustle that forced women to lean forward and take
(03:57):
tiny little steps to carry all that weight, similar to
the figures on Grecian urns. The Grecian bend was erotic
to Victorians because a woman's breasts and rear jutted out.
Also making the bend more appealing was the belief that
any woman who adopted the Grecian bend was bold and daring,
yet at the same time fragile and afflicted, which they loved.
(04:21):
Pretty creepy, right, But One of the weirdest trends popular
in the eighteen sixties was called the Princess Alexandra limp.
What was that all about? Well, again, the beauty of
being fragile. Alexandra, whose father was the King of Denmark,
was married to British Prince Edward the seventh in eighteen
sixty three. In no time, this teenage girl became a
(04:43):
fashion icon, actually very much like Princess Diana. One hundred
and twenty years later, everything Alexandra did and wore became
a huge fashion fad. She started wearing ornate choker necklaces
to hide a surgical scar on her neck. Pretty soon, ever,
everybody was wearing chokers, a trend that lasted for fifty years.
(05:04):
They all wanted to look like Alexandra. But the craziest
trend she set off through no fault of her own,
was the Alexandra limp. She had an illness in the
mid eighteen sixties that left her with a very stiff
knee and a pretty noticeable limp. Soon tons of young
women in England began copying her limp, using walking sticks
(05:25):
at times to hobble around, even though they had no
reason to limp. It was the next big thing in
British fashion, as people across England and all over its
colonies found it fashionable to walk in the exact same way.
Most amazingly, shoemakers purposely created shoes that matched one another
but which had different height heels to make limping a breeze.
(05:47):
It finally ended when the press pointed out how disrespectful
the fake limp was to people who had an actual limp.
So we look back at the craziness of some of
those trends and we laugh. But we really have to
ask ourselves what makes black teeth, wrapped feet or a
fake limp all that different from butt implants and heroin chic?
(06:07):
Is it all a misguided need to be popular, to
stand out by copying what makes somebody else unique an
excellent reason to love yourself as is and embrace what
makes you an individual. I hope you're enjoying the Backstory
with me, Patty Steele. Please subscribe, and if you have
(06:30):
a story you'd like me to dig into and share,
please dm me on Facebook at Patty Steele or on
Instagram at Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories
a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser, Our
(06:50):
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
know you needed to know.
We all like to feel cool, right, But how far
are you willing to go to feel like you're part
of the popular crowd? How about walking around bent in
half because it made you look fragile and afflicted, or
having mismatched heels on your shoes so you'd walk with
a limp. Oh laugh. Today folks get giant butt implants
to look like a Kardashian. I'm Patty Steele. Weird trends
(00:24):
just to be cool. Next on the backstory. We're back
with the backstory. What is it about an awful lot
of us that makes us so desperate to be a
part of the cool set that we're willing to do
or wear almost anything to feel like an insider. That's
what trends are all about. Take a look at more
(00:47):
recent trends. In the nineteen sixties, women went from that curvy,
platinum blonde look of the fifties to the frighteningly skinny
look of supermodel Twiggy, who weighed just ninety pounds. That
look drove, by the way way too many young girls
into anorexia, although Twiggy says she just had a speedy
metabolism and ate like a horse, at least like a
(01:08):
ninety pound horse. That super skinny look had a resurgence
in the early nineties for a much more sinister reason.
It was the advent of heroin chic, with supermodel Cape
Moss the most well known of that bunch. It was
a look that went beyond models and included the grunge
world of Kurt Cobain and so many other musicians that
(01:29):
eventually lost their lives to it. By the two thousands,
while we still worshiped tall, thin models, we started to
embrace a curvier, more natural look thanks to stars like
Jennifer Lopez. Then all hell broke loose when the Kardashians
and their super sized rear ends arrived. Suddenly, women who
(01:50):
didn't have a lot of junk in the trunk were
actually getting oversized butt implants to go along with their
oversized breast implants. But none of this does desire to
change what we were born with. Is new. Now it's
the fifteen hundreds, and you want to look like the
royals who could afford tons of very expensive sugar, which
(02:10):
naturally rotted their teeth, so you purposely blacken your teeth
to look shishi. Some doctors at the time would even
pull blackened teeth out of dead bodies and use them
as primitive implants for their ohso trendy patients. And teeth
blackening wasn't just in Europe. In fact, it was way
more common for hundreds of years in the Far East,
(02:32):
including Japan and India, but also in a lot of
South American cultures. Why they saw it as a sign
of beauty and sexual maturity, and in some cases because
they felt it differentiated us from animals. And then there
was a long time trend in China that sounds unbelievably tortuous.
(02:53):
For centuries, parents would repeatedly break and then fold the
feet of their baby girls to gree a tiny little
feet that they felt was the epitome of femininity. If
you had tiny bound feet, it showed that you came
from a wealthy family and wouldn't need to work in
the fields. Your feet would be wrapped with long ribbons
(03:13):
to keep them from growing. And if your toes withered
and fell off, better yet major feet even smaller. You
then would wear what they called lotus shoes, which cupped
your tiny feet in what looked like a lotus flower bud.
Now imagine walking around in heavy fitted clothing and spending
your day leaning forward at the waist like you were
(03:35):
in the middle of bowing. Talk about a major backache.
You're doing a thing called the Grecian bend, a popular
trend in England from the late eighteen twenties to the
early eighteen eighties. The effect was created by a massive
amount of bunched up fabric positioned above your rear like
a bustle that forced women to lean forward and take
(03:57):
tiny little steps to carry all that weight, similar to
the figures on Grecian urns. The Grecian bend was erotic
to Victorians because a woman's breasts and rear jutted out.
Also making the bend more appealing was the belief that
any woman who adopted the Grecian bend was bold and daring,
yet at the same time fragile and afflicted, which they loved.
(04:21):
Pretty creepy, right, But One of the weirdest trends popular
in the eighteen sixties was called the Princess Alexandra limp.
What was that all about? Well, again, the beauty of
being fragile. Alexandra, whose father was the King of Denmark,
was married to British Prince Edward the seventh in eighteen
sixty three. In no time, this teenage girl became a
(04:43):
fashion icon, actually very much like Princess Diana. One hundred
and twenty years later, everything Alexandra did and wore became
a huge fashion fad. She started wearing ornate choker necklaces
to hide a surgical scar on her neck. Pretty soon, ever,
everybody was wearing chokers, a trend that lasted for fifty years.
(05:04):
They all wanted to look like Alexandra. But the craziest
trend she set off through no fault of her own,
was the Alexandra limp. She had an illness in the
mid eighteen sixties that left her with a very stiff
knee and a pretty noticeable limp. Soon tons of young
women in England began copying her limp, using walking sticks
(05:25):
at times to hobble around, even though they had no
reason to limp. It was the next big thing in
British fashion, as people across England and all over its
colonies found it fashionable to walk in the exact same way.
Most amazingly, shoemakers purposely created shoes that matched one another
but which had different height heels to make limping a breeze.
(05:47):
It finally ended when the press pointed out how disrespectful
the fake limp was to people who had an actual limp.
So we look back at the craziness of some of
those trends and we laugh. But we really have to
ask ourselves what makes black teeth, wrapped feet or a
fake limp all that different from butt implants and heroin chic?
(06:07):
Is it all a misguided need to be popular, to
stand out by copying what makes somebody else unique an
excellent reason to love yourself as is and embrace what
makes you an individual. I hope you're enjoying the Backstory
with me, Patty Steele. Please subscribe, and if you have
(06:30):
a story you'd like me to dig into and share,
please dm me on Facebook at Patty Steele or on
Instagram at Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories
a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser, Our
(06:50):
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the
backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
know you needed to know.
Popular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.