9 Deadly Fashion Trends That Actually Killed People

6. Arsenic Dye

The Victorians were famously obsessed with "sea air" and all of its curative properties. It turns out that it may have felt so good for them, simply because everything in their homes was poisoning them, and a day at the seaside gave their poor bodies a break. Aside from the gas in their leaky lights, the mercury in their medicine and the lead in their baby bottles, they were also merrily lacing their belongings with lots of lovely arsenic.

Before we could whip up any colour dye in a lab, new colour trends were a huge deal in Victorian society and when the bottle green of arsenic-based dyes hit the market, they went mad for it. Arsenic went into wallpaper, book coverings, dresses and even pills for libido and would either flake off when brushed or be absorbed through the skin when people sweated through their arsenic clothes (or just absorbed into the blood when they took arsenic pills) causing diarrhoea, vomiting,vomiting blood, blood in the urine, cramping muscles, hair loss, stomach pain, convulsions, coma and death.

But, hey, at least they looked great.