In the age before plastic surgery, masks were the best option for veterans with faces scarred by war. The end results, however, were somewhat uncanny.

According to one historian, the year 1900 was “the zenith of glove-wearing,” when any self-respecting Victorian (British or American) wouldn’t be caught dead without covered hands.

Are you wearing seaweed? People have been for hundreds of years, in sizing, patterns and fibers, although they might not have known it.

In the 18th century, whether a person drank punch or tea revealed a lot about gender, stereotypes, sociability, and domesticity.

Chairs were a subject of much debate as far back as the nineteenth century, pitting health and technology against propriety and aesthetics.

The Men’s Dress Reform Party (MDRP) called for liberation from dark, tightly-knit textiles...and had some ties to the eugenics movement.

Middle-class American manhood changed in the mid-twentieth century. And the new ideal of masculine consumption was captured by men’s magazines.

The physics behind the fun: roller coasters provide so many examples of basic principles that they are a staple of physics lessons. 

The famous Persian carpet, woven by female artisans in southwestern Iran, may be going extinct. Its story can be told in spindles and whorls.

The evolution of the way TV news looks has much to do with principles of modernity and design.