Bonaparty

So I was searching around on one of my favorite fashion history websites today and I found this very interesting article about Napoleon. No, not Napoleon Dynamite, silly. This Napoleon was more concerned with dominating countries than tater tots.

When Napoleon became emperor of France in 1804, he was determined to make France a leader in textiles and fashion. Unfortunately, during the French Revolution, the textile factories had suffered greatly, causing France to have to import from England.

This was a difficult predicament for little Bonaparty. So what did he do to remedy it? He banned all fabric imports from England! Then he began reviving old textile factories so that fabrics like lace and batiste could be made again.

At this point I was thinking, good job, Bonaparty! You saved France from becoming a fashion trash heap! But oh no. He didn't stop there. He took it a step...or fifty, further. To make it so women would buy more fabric, he forbade women to wear the same dress more than once to court. He also made large gathers of fabric on the back of dresses popular again as well as trains, which meant much more fabric went into making dresses. And if that wasn't enough, he also stopped lighting fireplaces in his palace so the women would wear more clothes.

I thought that was pretty crazy. I mean that was a pretty douche move of Napoleon to do that and I feel really bad for those women. But...he was just trying to help out his country. And it was in the name of fashion, so how I can I protest?

But still, reading this made me thankful that I don't have some crazy French tyrant dictating what I wear. I'll leave that up to moi, merci beaucoup.