50 Historical Garments That Would Break The Internet If Worn Today

Just when we think we've seen it all, someone rocks up on the red carpet wearing a dress made from raw meat. Or, they bring their chopped off dreadlocks as their "date" for the evening. Let's not forget the 2023 Met Gala where several celebrities arrived looking like Karl Lagerfeld's white cat Choupette. And of course, there was Bianca Censori's birthday suit stunt at the 2025 Grammies. It's safe to say that nowadays, anything goes...

Perhaps Censori was channeling our ancestors. Perhaps not. But once upon a time, people didn't wear any clothing at all. When humans finally started making and donning outfits, it wasn't to be fashionable or trendy. But rather, out of a need to survive and protect their bodies from the environmental elements.

At first, the clothing of choice was often made out of animal hides. Research suggests that around 800,000 years ago, Paleolithic hominins wore simple cloak-like garments. Their outfits started getting a little more complex after 400,000 years ago when they were forced to live in colder, glacial times. But back then, there was no such thing as a sewing machine. Even an eyed needle took a while to find its way into the hands and haystacks of humankind.

According the Smithsonian magazine, people used dedicated cutting tools called blades to shape animal hides. "They also pierced holes in the hides to sew the cut segments together," reads the site. "The basic hide-piercing tool is called an awl, a slender pointed artifact often made from an elongated animal bone, such as a thin forearm bone or a rib."

Archeological finds suggests that Paleolithic humans invented the "sophisticated" eyed needle around 30,000 years ago.

Fashion has moved fast over the years. Charles Frederick Worth is credited as the first "real" fashion designer. He launched his House of Worth fashion design label in Paris in the 19th century. Before then, seamsters or dressmakers would make outfits for their customers, and often, trends were dictated by what royalty were wearing.

It was Worth who set the ball in motion for designers to set the tone, rather than just follow instructions from clients. He paved the way for the likes of Prada, Gucci, Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, Louis Vuitton and crew.

Modern fashion design is divided into two basic categories: haute couture and ready-to-wear. "The haute couture collection is dedicated to certain customers and is custom-sized to fit these customers exactly," explains the fibre2fashion site. "In order to qualify as a haute couture house, a designer has to be part of the Syndical Chamber for Haute Couture and show a new collection twice a year presenting a minimum of 35 different outfits each time."

On the other hand, ready-to-wear collections are standard-sized, not custom-made, so they are more suitable for large production runs. Think the clothes we find in shops or online. "They are also split into two categories: designer/createur and confection collections," notes fibre2fashion. Designer collections are high quality, unique pieces, which are often created to make a statement.

While our ancestors started wearing clothing to protect themselves from the varying climate conditions, current fashion trends are contributing to climate change. Vogue reports that between 80 and 150 billion clothes are produced every single year.

Because there isn't an exact figure, the fashion magazine believes its safe to settle on around 70 billion items of clothing. Others, like the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, use an average figure of 100 million garments. Either way, it's a large number. And environmentalists say our penchant for fashion is wreaking havoc on the earth.

According to the UN Environment Programme, the industry is the second-biggest consumer of water. You might be surprised to know that it takes about 700 gallons to produce one cotton shirt and 2,000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans. The industry is also responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions. That's more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

Besides water consumption and carbon emissions, there's also the issue of waste. The Copenhagen Fashion Summit revealed that out of the 100 billion garments produced annually, 92 million tonnes end up discarded in landfills. And every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truckload of clothes is either incinerated or buried in landfills. Globally, 57% of clothing waste is sent to landfill. While 25% goes up in flames.

According to the State of Matter Apparel, "an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste end up in U.S. landfills yearly, accounting for approximately 85% of all textiles. This equates to an alarming 81.5 pounds (37 kilograms) of textile waste per person per year." Or 2,150 textile pieces discarded per second across the country.

The biggest culprit is fast fashion. Earth.org defines fast fashion as “cheaply produced and priced garments that copy the latest catwalk styles and get pumped quickly through stores in order to maximise on current trends.” Basically, our need to keep up with trends by constantly buying cheap versions of the latest in-fashion pieces.

One of the often overlooked problems that comes with fast fashion is the issue of returned items or garments. "In the United States alone, shoppers returned $816 billion in goods last year," notes the State of Matter Apparel site. "Unfortunately, many of these items are sent to landfills as companies often find it more cost-effective to dispose of them than reintroduce them into the market."

As many as 9.5 billion pounds of returns ended up in landfills in 2022. To put that into context, it's like fully loading 10,500 Boeing 747s with the clothes people took back to the shop.