Interview with Carolyn Day

Hello Carolyn: Hiya BashTheBug.

I sense an American accent hiding in there… Yep. You’d be right. I’m a Professor in British History & the History of Medicine based at Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina.

So, what brings you to the UK? To meet me? No (laughs). I’ve written a book on how consumption shaped fashion in the first half of the 19th century.

Consumption? Isn’t that another name for TB. I hate TB. Well, with a name like BashTheBug, I sort of hoped you would.

Run that past me again? The disease was fashionable? Sort of. The higher classes, especially in the UK, came to view dying from Tuberculosis as a glamorous, romantic death and as a result fashion started to copy how people looked with consumption.

Like? Like showing off the wing-backed appearance that came with TB or using corsets that not only accentuated a narrow waist but actually compressed the torso. They even used makeup to make the skin more pale, with redder lips and cheeks.  Some women even went so far as to paint on fake on veins.

Weird! No more strange than some of the things we wear today, BashTheBug.

I suppose so. Nice stickers! I thought so too. Thanks BashTheBug.

Thanks Carolyn, and good luck with your book when it is released in October 2017.