This week on 1-800-1800, we’re discussing life’s inevitabilities—death and unrealistic beauty standards—with Jessica DeFino of one of our all time favorite Substacks, Flesh World!!
Join us to learn more about Prince Albert’s death, Queen Victoria’s resulting mourning period as well as the ways death is trending in contemporary beauty culture. This one goes crazy!
Show Notes
* Flesh World
* Ask Ugly
* Mess World
* “World Exhibition.” Free Library. Accessed July 14, 2026. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/feature/centennial/exhibition.
* Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in March 1861, Royal Collection Trust. https://www.youngqueenvictoria.co.uk/queenvictoriarevivalthe-courtship-of-queen-victoria-and-prince-albert
* The Prince Consort in his deathbed, December 1861, Wikimedia Commons.https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert,_Prince_Consort_%281819-61%29_after_death,_the_Blue_Room,_Windsor_Castle_16_-_16_Dec_1861.jpg
* Queen Victoria in mourning, with a portrait of Prince Albert c. 1862.
* Victoria - Widowhood, reforms, Legacy | Britannica. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Victoria-queen-of-United-Kingdom/Widowhood.
* Queen Victoria’s Mourning Dress, 1894. The Costume Institute. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/155840
* Mitford, Jessica. The American Way of Death. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963.
* DeFino, Jessica. “Cadaver Fat Filler & the Ethics of Necrocosmetics.” FLESH WORLD , March 26, 2026. https://jessicadefino.substack.com/p/cadaver-fat-filler-and-the-ethics.
* Washington Post. Peptide Boom has States Scrambling to Protect Consumers, Post Investigation Finds - The Washington Post. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/07/24/peptide-boom-has-states-scrambling-protect-consumers-post-investigation-finds/.
* The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.
* Hair bracelet with photograph, 1858, Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2022 https://albert.rct.uk/explore/themes/photographic-technologies/hair-bracelet-with-photograph
* Lina, Katharina. “Woven in Hair.” INFRINGE, February 4, 2020. https://www.infringe.com/woven-in-hair/.
* “Prescribed Periods of Mourning .” Victorian Web. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://victorianweb.org/history/mourning/6.html.
* Taylor, L. (1983). Mourning Dress (Routledge Revivals): A Costume and Social History (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.yale.idm.oclc.org/10.4324/9780203871324
* Wildgoose, Jane. “Ways of Making with Human Hair and Knowing How to ‘Listen’ to the Dead.” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 23, no. 1 (2016): 79–101. https://www-jstor-org.yale.idm.oclc.org/stable/26466679.
* Lutz, Deborah. “DEATH BECOMES HER: A CENTURY OF MOURNING ATTIRE.” Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire. The Metropolitan Museum of Art; My Lady Ludlow; Death in the Victorian Family; Death, Dissection, and the Destitute; Mourning Dress: A Costume and Social History; Vanity Fair, by Harold Koda, Jessica Regan, Elizabeth Gaskell, et al. Victorian Literature and Culture 44, no. 1 (2016): 217–22. http://www.jstor.org.yale.idm.oclc.org/stable/43923421.
* Lutz, Deborah. “THE DEAD STILL AMONG US: VICTORIAN SECULAR RELICS, HAIR JEWELRY, AND DEATH CULTURE.” Victorian Literature and Culture 39, no. 1 (2011): 127–42. http://www.jstor.org.yale.idm.oclc.org/stable/41307854.
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