This book was informative and hilarious. This book really is a great example of how different our world is than the one that was around even a hundred years ago. The book lists many different former styles and how they killed people. That doesn't sound funny at all but, besides just the facts, the way the author writes, includes a funny poem, and the illustrations that goes with the blurb on each page just all adds up to a funny, quirky read. Some of the situations are funny on their own but the author gave them all an excellent spin as well. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would love to see more like it.

So this was an interesting read. It has poetry and illustrations. It also has a lot of deadly fashion history. It includes information on everything from lead makeup and high heels to wigs and artificial silk. A few of the facts I knew but for the most part alot of the information about particular items of clothing were new. I really enjoyed the book.

A quick and quirky look at the various ways humans' bizarre need to be fashionable has resulted in illness, injury and death. Full of trivia tidbits and gallows humor, Killer Fashion shows what happens when people are just DYING to be beautiful.

A riotous look at all the crazy things humans have done (and continue to do) through the ages to look attractive. From poisoning ourselves with lead make-up, squeezing our internal organs with corsets and strangling ourselves with collars and ties, this is a lively little book with quirky drawings and poems accompanying the text. I only wish it had been longer!

👠 Fashionably Fatal Friday the 13th Feature 🎩

While I strongly believe that clothing's not supposed to hurt you, there are plenty of people that don't seem to have a problem with suffering in the name of fashion. There are heels that ruin your feet, jeans so skinny the logo button ends up imprinted on your belly, clothes you can't sit down in, clothes that make you sweat, clothes that make you freeze, and ties that should come with a choking hazard warning.

But what lengths would you go to in order to pull off the latest style?

Is a fashionable death in your future?

I loved Killer Fashion: Poisonous Petticoats, Strangulating Scarves, and Other Deadly Garments Throughout History so much that it has inspired me to break out in poetry to give you a taste of some of the wonderfully wacky causes of death in this book.

Disclaimer: I know some of these 'rhymes' don't exactly rhyme but you will never, ever hear me claim that I think I'm a poet.


Radium's glow makes you look hot
Until your jaw begins to rot

Your fancy bra's underwire
May conduct that lightning's ire

Are you ready to break your toes
To fit into tiny shoes like those?

Dye turns dark hair pale
Until your kidneys fail

Lice crawl all around your wig
And that mouse is mighty big

A man lay dying in the gutter
"Blame that skirt", they heard him utter

Breathe in those toxic fumes
And you'll soon go looney tunes

Fake silky attire was a phase
Until it set the room ablaze

Wear makeup laced with lead
And you'll soon look pretty dead


With plenty of opportunities to die gruesome deaths for both men and women, for wearers and makers of the often toxic or flammable items, Jennifer Wright's quirky book is perfect for those strange and unusual kindred spirits of mine who gravitate towards equally strange and unusual books.

While I had heard of some of these torture devices and death traps disguised as clothes and accessories throughout history prior to reading this book, I hadn't read them in such an entertaining way before. I also learned a lot more than I would have expected from a book that's under 60 pages.

With quotes from such sources as newspapers, a magazine and a medical journal, and including citations that allow those of us who are so inclined to delve deeper, Killer Fashion is one of those books I got a lot more morbid enjoyment out of than I should probably admit.

Each fashion item is allocated two pages. One page has a paragraph ranging from a few sentences to a page of information. The opposite page has a four line poem under an almost full page illustration. Using black, white, grey and red (of course!), Brenna Thummler's illustrations ramp up the quirky factor nicely. Skeletal flapper girls dancing on stage? Brilliant! Just brilliant!

I definitely need to read this book again and investigate some of the books referenced throughout. I'm saying this with the greatest respect to the book, its author and illustrator; this would be a perfect gift book for the weirdo in your life. I would love it if someone bought a copy for me!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley (thank you so much to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the opportunity) in exchange for honest feedback.

A quick and darkly funny read that traces the trends of fashion history - and each of their dangers. From garments all over the world, to the items synonymous with different eras of history, Killer Fashion reveals the risks that even the most mundane of them pose to the person wearing them. I mean, who knew that high heels, collars and even scarves had the power to kill someone?
In just 58 pages, Jennifer Wright leaves the reader with a new perspective and more knowledge on the topic of fashion throughout history, in the easy-breezy way that only humorous books like Killer Fashion seems to be able to. With the help of jaunty verses and illustrations, it manages to convey truly awful historic events in a way that both, explores their brutality and turns them on their head to give them a darkly-funny edge.
This book is the perfect way to chuckle along to and, with the format that it is in, no matter how many times that you’ve read it, you’ll be able to come back to it over and over again.