Dedicated followers of fashion have always been prepared to go to ridiculous extremes. Today we scoff at models falling off their eight-inch heels or Lady Gaga sporting a dress made from meat. The past has furnished equally ludicrous examples, such as the Georgian woman whose hoop petticoat became entangled in a ram’s horns and the Edwardian craze for ‘hobble skirts’, which prevented women from running. Yet, as Alison Matthews David’s fascinating book reveals, fashion fads have far more frequently led to tragedy than comedy.

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