As you may have noticed, I am interested in bizarre Danish trivia, like the Hans Island War. This story is far more bizarre. Princess Alexandra was the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark. She married Edward, the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne in 1863. Alexandra of Denmark quickly became the fashion icon of England. Wealthy women wore copies of her dresses. They wore chokers that looked like the ones that Alexandra wore to conceal a scar on her neck. After giving birth to her third child, Alexandra developed rheumatic fever. When she recovered, the disease left her with a noticeable limp. Shortly afterwards, a strange fashion craze swept over Britain, the Alexandra Limp. High society women in England and Scotland started limping everywhere they went, copying Alexandra’s limp. Shrewd shopkeepers quickly figured out how to make money on the Alexandra Limp. They began selling ‘limping shoes’, one shoe high, one shoe low, forcing the wearer to walk with a limp. Women also began walking with canes. Predictably, newspapers and prominent figures in England were aghast by this fashion trend, mimicking Alexandra’s very real disability. American newspapers also ridiculed the Alexandra Limp, which never caught on in the United States. The New York World published a cartoon ridiculing ‘The Limping Ladies of London.’ Although her relatives in Denmark thought Alexandra should publicly denounce the Alexandra Limp, she said nothing about it. Her limp was an embarrassment to her. Like all absurd fashion trends, the Alexandra Limp eventually faded away.