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THE BLOOMER SUIT See Also: Bloomers (clothing) The new United States of America was home to a number of high-minded, evangelical women active in the Anti-slavery and Temperance Movements . Experience in public speaking and political agitation led some of these women to demand emancipation for themselves. They wanted the vote and some of them wanted sensible clothing as well. {Link without Title} In 1851, a New England temperance activist named Elizabeth Smith Miller (Libby Miller) adopted what she considered a more rational costume: loose trousers gathered at the ankles, like the trousers worn by Middle Eastern and Central Asian women, topped by a short dress or skirt and vest. She displayed her new clothing to temperance activist and Suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton , who found it sensible and becoming, and adopted it immediately. In this garb she visited yet another activist, Amelia Bloomer , the editor of the temperance magazine The Lily. Bloomer not only wore the costume, she promoted it enthusiastically in her magazine. More women wore the fashion and were promptly dubbed " Bloomers ". The Bloomers put up a valiant fight for a few years, but were subjected to ceaseless ridicule in the press and harassment on the street. Amelia Bloomer herself dropped the fashion in 1859, saying that a new invention, the Crinoline , was a sufficient reform that she could return to conventional dress. The bloomer costume died — temporarily. It was to return much later (in a different form), as a women's athletic costume in the 1890s and early 1900s. UNDERGARMENT REFORM Reformers turned their attention to undergarments, which could be modified without attracting ridicule. Physician Alice Bunker Stockham railed against the corset and said of the pregnancy corset, "The Best pregnancy corset is no corset at all." Alice Bunker Stockham. Tokology 1898. The "emancipation union under flannel" was first sold in America in 1868. It combined a waist (shirt) and drawers (leggings) in the form we now know as the Union Suit . While first designed for women, the union suit was also adopted by men. Indeed, it is still sold and worn today, by both men and women, as winter underclothing. In 1878, a German professor named Gustav Jaeger published a book claiming that only clothing made of animal hair, such as wool, promoted health. A British accountant named Lewis Tomalin translated the book, then opened a shop selling Dr Jaeger’s Sanitary Woollen System, including knitted wool union suits. These were soon called "Jaegers"; they were widely popular. Dress reformers also promoted the emancipation waist, or ; patterns could be ordered through the mail. CRITICISMS OF TIGHTLACING It is not clear how many women wore such bodices; however, the reformers' critique of the corset joined a throng of voices clamoring against Tightlacing , the pursuit of the tiniest waist in the ballroom. Preachers inveighed against tightlacing; doctors counseled patients against it; journalists wrote articles condemning the vanity and frivolity of women who would sacrifice their health for the sake of fashion. Whereas corsetting was accepted as necessary for both beauty and health, tightlacing was viewed as vain and unhealthy. However, it was in many respects simply an intensification of ordinary Victorian fashions, and many of the images of feminine attractiveness that a Victorian woman saw around her (in fashion plates, advertisements, etc.) were depictions of highly-corseted women. RATIONAL DRESS SOCIETY The Rational Dress Society was an organisation founded in 1881 in London. It described its purpose thus: : ''The Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion in dress that either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any way tends to injure the health. It protests against the wearing of tightly-fitting corsets; of high-heeled shoes; of heavily-weighted skirts, as rendering healthy exercise almost impossible; and of all tie down cloaks or other garments impeding on the movements of the arms. It protests against crinolines or crinolettes of any kind as ugly and deforming…. requires all to be dressed healthily, comfortably, and beautifully, to seek what conduces to birth, comfort and beauty in our dress as a duty to ourselves and each other.'' [http://www.glily.com/preraphs.htm ARTISTIC DRESS MOVEMENT See Also: Artistic Dress movement The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and other artistic reformers objected to the elaborately Trimmed confections of Victorian fashion with their unnatural silhouette based on a rigid Corset and hoops as both ugly and dishonest. Their wives and models adopted a revival style based on romanticised Medieval influences such as puffed Juliette Sleeves and trailing skirts. These were made in the soft colors of vegetable Dye s, and were ornamented with hand Embroidery in the Art Needlework style. The style spread as an "anti-fashion" called Artistic Dress in the 1860s in literary and artistic circles, died back in the 1870s , and reemerged as ''Aesthetic dress'' in the 1880s , where the emphasis was not so much on honesty and purity as sensuality and langour. GIRL ATHLETES AND WORKING WOMEN In the 19th century, poor women were known to wear corsets "boned" with rope, rather than steel or bone, to facilitate work in the field. |
Image:Ellimans-Universal-Embrocation-Slough-1897-AdpngA 1897 Ad, Showing A Relatively Early Example Of An Ordinary Non-sea-bathing Woman In Public View In Unskirted Garments (to Ride A
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Image:Wigan Pit Brow LassjpgThe
| "http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/information/entry/Wigan" class="copylinks">Wigan "pit brow lasses" scandalized Victorian society by wearing Trousers for their dangerous work in the coal mines They wore skirts over their trousers, rolled up to the waist to keep them out of the way |
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