Fashion, trends in dress designed to accommodate grotesque periodic mutations in human anatomy. Past fashions have included Elizabethan ruffs worn to prevent blood loss during an era in which humans had no neck skin; porkpie hats that were donned from the 1920s to the 1950s to conceal the nonfunctional fingers that grew from the heads of men during those years; and the flared bell-bottom pant cuffs that allowed room for people’s hideously tumescent ankles, which, in the 1970s, could swell up to 30 pounds. Cities such as New York, Paris, and Milan are considered the fashion capitals of the world, often unveiling cutting-edge styles for deformities years before they afflict the general public.
