Through history men and women have been asked that exact question, and time and time again they shrugged and said, "Eh, I'll risk it." So we wound up with things like...

If we know our readers, then we're guessing fashion dominates your every thought. But how far would you go to be wearing the absolute latest and hottest looks? Would you wear something knowing it could, at some point, kill your ass?

6 The Crinoline

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The crinoline is a hoop skirt that women in the 19th century wore under their actual skirts. It was made from horsehair and thread or steel, and the whole purpose of the huge apparatus was to make the skirt look more... skirt-like.

Also, since you were basically wearing a cage around your legs, you could probably use the crinoline to trap small animals and kick them to death.

How It Could Kill You:

The steel crinoline was actually so deadly it's amazing this thing was ever worn at all. Because of its design, it was quite susceptible to gusts of wind. There are tales of women on piers that were swept up and carried out to sea, where they promptly drowned due to having a fucking steel cage tied to their waists. It was also a bad idea to hang around cliffs or tall buildings in this sort of contraption.

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The skirts would get entangled in the spokes of carriages, presumably dragging the women screaming down the street. Then there was the less obvious dangers, such as knocking over candles. Don't laugh; the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's second wife went up in flames this way, and she wasn't the only one.

Wait, it gets worse. In 1863 in Santiago, Chile, between 2000 and 3000 people died in a church fire. When a gas lamp lit the veils on the walls, people tried to run outside, but the width of the women's skirts blocked the door, and crinolines with women inside piled up in front of the exit, making an escape impossible even for the people who'd been smart enough not to wear hoop skirts.

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What the Fuck Were They Thinking?

The crinoline, in making someone's ass look big, would also make their waist look smaller, and so women didn't have to wear a corset. Why would they take such extravagant measures to avoid that? Well...