Lice in popular brand of clothing

I was speaking to someone about this myth recently, well at least I think it's a myth, and my friend remembered it too.

I wondered if it had cropped up anywhere else?

When I was a girl there was a chain of shops in the UK called Chelsea Girl. They catered for fashionable young women and girls.

The story went that a young woman had purchased a beautiful skirt form one of the shops but had been mystified to discover a ring of itchy bumps around her waist after wearing it.

She took apart the hem and was horrified to discover that the waistband was full of lice.

The story was so prevalent that all of my schoolfriends were put off buying clothes from Chelsea Girl.

Anyone else remember this one, either in relation to this shop or to any other shop?

[queen of the caramels]

Originally Posted by Ophelia P

I was speaking to someone about this myth recently, well at least I think it's a myth, and my friend remembered it too.

I wondered if it had cropped up anywhere else?

When I was a girl there was a chain of shops in the UK called Chelsea Girl. They catered for fashionable young women and girls.

The story went that a young woman had purchased a beautiful skirt form one of the shops but had been mystified to discover a ring of itchy bumps around her waist after wearing it.

She took apart the hem and was horrified to discover that the waistband was full of lice.

The story was so prevalent that all of my schoolfriends were put off buying clothes from Chelsea Girl.

Anyone else remember this one, either in relation to this shop or to any other shop?

As the sis of an avid CG shopper( at that time) I have never heard of this at all.

Though I am surprised the women in the OP took apart the hem IF the trouble was at the waist area. Or am I misunderstanding which hem here??

[Embra]

I don't remember the myth either - I do remember Chelsea Girl shops, but I was in 80s Essex as opposed to 70s Bedfordshire.

The style of the story does sound classically UL-like though (vanity punished, perhaps?).

Searching using "chelsea girl" + lice brings up some weird things by the way!

[Eddylizard]

I assumed that it referred to the hem at the waistband, where the material is folded over and stitched, rather than the hem at the bottom.

It's not unknown for people to return clothing. A hard-up friend of mine used to buy clothes to go to parties, then the next day use one of the 'tagging guns' we had at work (Those irritating little plastic tags that hold the label to the garment), re-attach the labels she had carefully removed and return it for a refund, claiming it was the wrong size/colour whatever.

I also suspect that returned garments end up on the shelf. Ex DW once bought a jacket (damned if I can remember the name of the shop) and when she got it home there was a smallish stain on the sleeve. It looked like dried milk or cream, so draw your own conclusions.

If it was a returned, worn item, then I guess it's possible that lice could have been transferred to it. I doubt it would be a major infestation, maybe a few.

I also wonder why the purchaser immediately went to the steps of dismantling the skirt. Even if I suspected a new garment was the cause of my itchy rash, I would think - probably an allergy to something used in preparing the fabric, not - let's take this apart and see if there is some sort of infestation.

[Jelly Bean Queen]

I'm allergic to rubber- if any sort of rash occurs after wearing a new skirt I always pull it apart at the waistband and replace the rubberised elastic with a nonrubber elastic. Maybe the girl who bought the skirt had allergies too.

Thanks for the replies

I'm pretty sure that it must have been an urban myth / legend, I wondered if it had been started by a retail competitor or was an adaptation of a much older myth.

At school we all believed it to be true, there again we also believed that a group of evil black men had pounced on a little white boy into a public toilet in Luton Arndale Centre and then cut his penis off (a notorious UL that seems to have popped up all over the place)

[Seraphina]

While body lice can definitely be transfered from one person to another of the borrow each other clothing, but cannot imagine how it would infest brand new garment. Here is more info on the beasties; http://medent.usyd.edu.au/fact/bodylice.html