The Wasp — 1892 — page 64: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon depicts two fashionably dressed women with identical elaborate hairstyles and clothing, presented as a satirical commentary on women's fashion and beauty standards of the era. The caption suggests a crude joke: that nature created man first as an experiment, then created woman as an improved or corrected version. The satire targets the artificiality of women's high fashion—the exaggerated hairstyles, corseted silhouettes, and ornamental dress visible in the illustration. The "lesson" appears to mock either women's vanity in pursuing such extreme fashions or the notion that women represent nature's "perfected" design through such elaborate artifice.