I’ve been inspired by the recent coverage of the fall 2017 collections during New York and Paris fashion weeks to think about the many ways fashion is deployed as a critique of women’s vanity. Here are a couple of brilliant prints I came across recently that are great to consider together. First, we have “The Inconvenience of Dress” (1786), which mocks the late-1780s demand for “false rumps” or “cork bums” to fill out the rear portion of women’s skirts. The poor dear needs help from a false rump because she can’t get consume enough calories to build her own, given the fashion for generous neckerchiefs in women’s wear in this period, too. Aye, but “Who’ll not starve to lead the Fashion?” as the ditty below asks:

Anonymous engraving, London, 1786, from the “Bawdy Bodies: Satires of Unruly Women” exhibition at the University of Colorado’s art museum, Feb. 2-June 24, 2017.