The Wasp — 1879 — page 208: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes **fashion's tyranny over women**. The central image shows a grotesque figure (representing Fashion personified) commanding obedience while holding implements of beauty torture—cosmetics, curling irons, and restrictive garments. The text criticizes fashion as "opposed to Nature" and "Fashion's sworn foe to all semblance to nature." It argues that fashion "devises means to disfigure and disguise" women through practices like powder, paint, gloves, and hair treatments that destroy natural beauty. The "Euphrate of the Past" title references historical female beauty standards (possibly Egyptian or classical), contrasting outdated fashions with contemporary ones. The overall message: **fashion enslaves women through vanity and artificial standards**, making them servants to unreasonable beauty conventions rather than celebrating natural appearance.