IT'S ACCEPTABLE IF IT'S MYTHOLOGICAL

Generally speaking, trade-card advertisers showed the women of their own time in a respectable and respectful fashion. But by representing on their cards images from mythology, such as Greek goddesses or mermaids, advertisers could show a little more skin without offending public standards.

The card below, on the other hand, shows a woman wearing some sort of exotic costume that faintly suggests the Middle East, although her features are European. Would the advertiser have placed the product name in the same way if clothes of the woman on the card had looked less exotic and foreign?

Catalogue information for this card

Victorian society had strong social codes, but as in all societies with strict rules, people found ways to get around them. Advertisers often managed to get their point across without stating the socially unacceptable in an outright fashion..

See an example