People participate in the annual Catrina parade ahead of the Day of the Dead in Mexico City, Mexico, October 26, 2019. Skeletal images have abounded in Mexico since pre-Hispanic times. But in 1910, when Mexico was living under the exclusionary policies of dictator Porfirio Diaz , illustrator Jose Guadalupe Posada sketched the image of La Catrina as a tool for social satire. She dons an oversized hat considered haute couture at a time when elite Mexican women copied Paris fashion trends and powdered their faces to appear more European. The implication was that the extravagance of a few who were accumulating vast wealth was killing others. The dictator was deposed at the start of the Mexican revolution, while the skeletal dame became etched in popular culture. "She's an iconic part of the death imagery of the Day of the Dead," said R. Andrew Chesnut, a professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University who researches Catholic death culture.