While many blamed fatalities resulting from these green frocks on the fashionistas who wore them, the truth is that Victorian Britain was painted the shade of corporate greed. According to Jezebel, arsenic acid was only regulated when sold on an individual level. Indeed, acts like the Arsenic Act of 1868 failed to regulate the large-scale manufacturing of the toxic hue by major corporations that stood to gain massive profits from the poison. This is despite the fact that doctors and physicians began speaking out in the late 1850s, only to endure nearly 40 years of silence and death.
Over the decades, green fashion killed without bias or care, taking down socialites and factory workers, babes in cradles, and ladies in gas-lit rooms alike. It's important to note that factory workers bore the brunt end of the misery. Many of them were forced to die working with the dye, even when they were aware of the dangers.
It wasn't until 1895 that stricter regulations relegated arsenic-related death to a dark page in fashion history's past (via Racked). Even then, high levels of the toxic tint were found in fashionable packaging on things like shoe boxes and storage accessories. According to The New York Times, toxic substances and carcinogens are commonly found in green fashion to this very day. Some shades of green are not only harmful to the wearers but also to the environment itself.
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