A closer look

The Victorian era was essentially one long competition to see who could be the most aggressively prudish. Queen Victoria supposedly found human perspiration to be so deeply offensive and unsophisticated that the word 'sweat' was practically outlawed in polite society. Instead, high-class women were said to merely 'glow,' while men were permitted to 'perspire.' Because nothing solves the reality of stinking in a heavily layered corset during a heatwave quite like polite rebranding.