Arts & Culture | October 25, 2025

Killer outfits

UVA collection spotlights deadly designs through history.

By Alice Berry, aberry@virginia.edu
Photos by Lathan Goumas, mkr4n@virginia.edu
Interactive by Mike Cross, tku6cy@virginia.edu

The term “fashion victim” might bring to mind someone who participates in a regrettable trend or has a penchant for clashing patterns and garish color pairings. But some styles from the past and present make that moniker literal.

The University of Virginia’s Historic Clothing Collection, hosted by the Department of Drama, includes a multitude of garments that have poisoned, choked and burned their wearers or the workers who made them. From arsenic dyes to “father-killer” collars, these styles in some cases claimed the lives of thousands.

UVA Today met with the collection’s manager, Marcy Linton, to learn more about these items and get a close-up look.

“...but it dyed this beautiful green”

a pair of bodices from the 1800's that have been dyed green with arsenic — These bodices contain no arsenic, but they are arsenic green.

Arsenic bodices

The toxic chemical arsenic gave a vibrant green hue to clothes, books and wallpaper. People exposed to arsenic experience symptoms like nausea, diarrhea and abdominal pain. It can cause cancer, heart disease and even death.

But during the Victorian Era, people were willing to risk their lives – and the lives of others – for the sake of looking good.

“These two particular bodices are from the mid-1800s, so they knew at the time that arsenic was poisonous,” Linton, an associate professor of costume technology, said. “People would actually kill each other with it, but it dyed this beautiful green.”

Linton worked with Sue Donovan, a book conservator in Special Collections at UVA Library, and recent graduate Charlie Webb, a student intern at the time, to study the bodices and ensure they did not contain traces of arsenic. It’s fortunate they don’t, since there are reports that a woman in her arsenic-dyed dress could poison people in seven different ballrooms.

As dangerous as an arsenic gown could be to the woman wearing it, it was even more perilous for the person who made it.

“It’s kind of like fast fashion today. We don’t consider the people who are endangering themselves to make what we’re wearing because it doesn’t affect us,” Linton said.

a dress made of highly flammable crinoline from the mid 19th century. — Crinolines like this one, donated by Arlyn Danielson in memory of John and Sandy Danielson, are highly flammable.

Crinoline fires

In the 1850s and ’60s, a big, full skirt was the prevailing style for women’s fashion. But layering multiple petticoats on top of each other was no longer necessary. Cage crinoline frames, made of wood, steel or horsehair, helped them accomplish a fashionable shape.

But they were unwieldy. They extended so far past a woman’s body that she wasn’t able to control its movements, and the skirts, made of cotton or gauze with lots of airflow, were flammable.

Combined with the prevalence of live fires – there was little central heating in the 19th century – the flammable materials and cages made it easy for women to be injured or killed when their skirts caught fire.

“The skirts were so airy and large, they would go up in flames before they could be rescued,” Linton said.

It’s estimated that between 1850 and 1860, roughly 3,000 women died in crinoline fires. That includes two of Oscar Wilde’s sisters. One sister’s skirt caught fire at a party, and when the other sister rushed over to help, her own dress went up in flames. Both women succumbed to their burns weeks later.

While it was mostly wealthy women who wore crinolines, women who worked in factories would wear them on the job. The full skirts could also get caught in machinery, injuring or killing their wearers.

an example of a hobble skirt dress — Hobble skirts limit the wearer’s leg movements and could lead to deadly disasters.

Hobble Skirts

This long, slim skirt boomed in popularity in 1908, after Edith Ogilby Berg became the first woman to fly in an airplane during a Wright Brothers flight demonstration in France. Berg tied a rope around her ankles to keep her skirt in place during the flight and kept it there when she hopped off the plane in front of a crowd that included the French fashion designer Paul Poiret. He was reportedly inspired to create dresses that were similarly form-fitting around the lower legs.

“They didn’t last forever because they were so restrictive,” Linton said.

Dubbed the “speed-limit skirt” because they slowed women down so much, they made running away from any danger nearly impossible. There are reports of women being trampled by horses because they could not get out of the way in time, or tripping and falling into water and drowning.

Mourning Dress

This dress may not have killed anyone, but it does mark a death. Formal mourning attire like this gown was a requirement, mostly for women, throughout much of the West until the 20th century.

Its bell shape marks it as being from sometime in the 1870s, and the elaborate beading and pleats mean it likely belonged to a very wealthy woman.

Mourning periods for widows were especially long, whereas widowers were generally expected to remarry quickly. After several months to a year, however, women could eventually incorporate small white accents or other dark shades, like gray or navy blue, into their clothing.

examples of highly-starched collars for men. Their box says ‘Made in England for Brooks Brothers New York’ — Hardened collars can cut off a man’s circulation and asphyxiate him.

‘Father killer’ collars

Women were not the only victims of fashion. “These collars were so stiffened that they had the nickname ‘father killers.’ They were so tight and stiff they would shut off circulation,” Linton said.

They were commonly worn by men during the late 19th century. They would be starched until they had the texture and strength of cardboard, then coated in celluloid to make them waterproof. That coating also made them highly flammable.

If a man fell asleep while wearing his collar, his head could fall forward, causing the collar to dig into his throat and effectively strangle him. Or, if he drank too much and threw up, he could asphyxiate on his own vomit. Linton said she has read one report of a man choking and dying because he had an allergic reaction and couldn’t remove his collar in time.

“you’re entirely bonkers!” — Mad Hatter, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)

illustration of two human skulls wearing mercury-felted hats. — Mercury-processed hats have silk linings and leather hat bands that protect the wearer from the toxin, but hatmakers were highly exposed.

Mercury-processed hats

Most deadly designs affected women more than men, as trends in women’s fashion changed more rapidly and were usually more flamboyant. Mercury-processed hats mark another exception.

“In the mid-1700s, hatmakers realized they could make felting easier by adding mercury into the mix,” Linton said.

Felting is the process by which a garment maker would mat fur together to create a dense, durable material.

Mercury poisoning from hats became so common that it inspired a Lewis Carroll character: the Mad Hatter. In addition to making people paranoid, mercury could cause nausea, blindness and memory loss, and make it difficult to breathe.

Because hats were usually lined and had leather bands inside that directly contacted the scalp, men who wore them were typically at less risk than the people who made them.

“A man wasn’t fully dressed if he left the house without a hat,” Linton said. “So society, for years, did not really consider the dangers of mercury, because it didn’t affect them in the same way.”

Marcy Linton poses with these killer clothes. She manages UVA’s Historic Clothing Collection.

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Killer outfits: UVA collection spotlights deadly designs through history

Killer outfits