A New Manual for “Fashion Illnesses”?

Published in the early '40s, Malattie della Moda (literally "Fashion Illnesses") was one of the first manuals written in Italy by a doctor, Arturo Fontana, analysing the most common diseases, conditions and allergies caused by a variety of reasons, from detergents to dust, plants and foods.

Two chapters in the book were dedicated to clothes and accessories and beauty: in their pages the author looked at skin rashes (I'm not enclosing the pictures appearing in the volume as some of them are pretty gruesome…) caused by dyes (he warned consumers for example about black furs dyed with substances derived from tar), corsets, bras, wool or shoes.

Highlights included lenghty paragraphs about serious intoxication caused by a colouring agent used for shoes and the lethal effects on skin of a leather varnish called “Black Hell" (with a name like that, what could you expect?).

There are sections also on jewellery that look at nickel-based watches and at the varnish used on wooden bangles. The beauty section includes instead tips about sunbathing, soaps, lipsticks and hair removal methods.

The author also collects at the end of each chapter a rich bibliography of American, British and French books and magazines about these issues.

You may think such a manual is maybe dated as by now we use different substances to dye fabrics, yet I do think there is a need for a revised version of such a manual that could also analyse anorexia and bulimia (the most common fashion-related illnesses…) and the most common effects on our skin of cheap made in China fabrics containing high levels of toxic substances such as carcinogenic formaldehyde (hands up who doesn't own basic garments bought in High Street stores – from T-shirts to underwear, but sometimes even jackets and trousers – that release their dyes, staining our skin or clothes every time we wear them…).

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