During the middle and late Victorian period, various reformers proposed, designed, and wore clothing supposedly more rational and comfortable than the fashions of the time. This was known as the dress reform or rational dress movement. The movement had its greatest success in the reform of women's undergarments, which could be modified without exposing the wearer to social ridicule. Dress reformers were also influential in persuading women to adopt simplified garments for athletic activities such as bicycling or swimming. The dress reform movement was much less concerned with men's clothing. It did have some effects on men's undergarments, such as the widespread adoption of knitted wool union suits or long johns. For the types and styles of womens undergarments, see lingerie. ... A union suit from the 1902 Sears, Roebuck catalog. ... long underwear Long underwear, often called long johns, is a style of two-piece underwear with long sleeves and long pantlegs that is normally worn during cold weather. ...

The bloomer suit

Bloomer Suit

Main article: 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.[1] Image File history File links Bloomer. ... Image File history File links Bloomer. ... 1850s fashion bloomers 1851 caricature of fashion bloomers as being similar to Turkish attire An example of late 19th-century / Edwardian athletic bloomers: the Smith College class of 1902 basketball team 1890s caricature of athletic bloomers as leading women to adopt masculine habits Bloomers is a word which has been... This article is about the abolition of slavery. ... A cartoon from Australia ca. ...

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. Suffragette with banner, Washington DC, 1918 The title of suffragette (also occasionally spelled suffraget) was given to members of the womens suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. ... Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American social activist and leading figure of the early womens rights movement. ... Amelia Jenks Bloomer (May 27, 1818—December 30, 1894) was an American womens rights and temperance advocate. ... 1850s fashion bloomers 1851 caricature of fashion bloomers as being similar to Turkish attire An example of late 19th-century / Edwardian athletic bloomers: the Smith College class of 1902 basketball team 1890s caricature of athletic bloomers as leading women to adopt masculine habits Bloomers is a word which has been...

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. crinoline patented Cutaway view of a crinoline, Punch magazine, August 1856 Sequence of posed joke photographs of five stages of putting on a crinoline, ca. ...

Undergarment reform

An attempt at dress reform in 1891, but keeping a fashionable silhouette.

Gaches-Sarraute in her (not fashionable) reform corset from about 1892. It was in fashion from 1900 to 1913, but only after many years of hard work.

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." ^[1] 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. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 588 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2964 × 3024 pixel, file size: 290 KB, MIME type: image/gif) Die frauenkleidug von Dr. C H. Stratz 1902 page 174 Fig. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 588 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2964 × 3024 pixel, file size: 290 KB, MIME type: image/gif) Die frauenkleidug von Dr. C H. Stratz 1902 page 174 Fig. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (597x1370, 84 KB) Beskrivelse http://fr. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (597x1370, 84 KB) Beskrivelse http://fr. ... Alice Bunker Stockham (1833-1912) was an obstetrician and gynecologist from Chicago, and the fifth woman to be made a doctor in the United States. ... A union suit from the 1902 Sears, Roebuck catalog. ...

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. Gustav Jäger (June 23, 1832 - May 13, 1917), German naturalist and hygienist, was born at Burg in Württemberg. ...

Dress reformers also promoted the emancipation waist, or emancipation bodice, as a replacement for the corset. The emancipation bodice was a tight sleeveless vest, buttoning up the front, with rows of buttons along the bottom to which could be attached petticoats and skirt. The entire torso would support the weight of the petticoats and skirt, not just the waist (since the undesirability of hanging the entire weight of full skirts and petticoats from a constricted waist — rather than hanging the garments from the shoulders — was another point often discussed by dress reformers).[2] The bodices had to be fitted by a dressmaker; patterns could be ordered through the mail. The liberty bodice (Australian and British English), like the emancipation bodice or North American emancipation waist, was an undergarment for women and girls invented towards the end of the 19th century, as an innovative alternative to a corset. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... Madame de Pompadour in an elaborately embroidered gown with matching petticoat, 1760s A petticoat or underskirt is an article of clothing for women; specifically an undergarment to be worn under a skirt, dress or sari. ... For other uses see Dressmaker (disambiguation) A dressmaker is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. ...

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. Cathie Jung (born 1937), wearing a sterling silver corset, holds the Guinness World Record for the smallest waist of any currently living person, at 38. ...

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….[It] 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. [3]

Artistic dress movement

Main article: 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 dyes, and were ornamented with hand embroidery in the art needlework style. Jane Morris (The Blue Silk Dress) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1868. ... Persephone, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. ... Trim or trimming in clothing and home decorating is applied ornament such as gimp, passementerie, ribbon, ruffles, or, as a verb, to apply such ornament. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ... Sleeve (O. Eng. ... Look up dye in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Gold Embroidery Cross-stitch embroidery, Hungary, mid-20th century Phulkari from Punjab region, India 15th century embroidered cope, Ghent, Belgium Elizabethan embroidery styles include blackwork on linen and dense patterns worked in colored silk and metallic threads on velvet or other rich fabrics Embroidery is the art or handicraft of... Art needlework was a type of surface embroidery popular in the later nineteenth century under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement. ...

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. Jane Morris (The Blue Silk Dress) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1868. ... Bustles and elaborate drapery on evening dresses of the early 1870s: Detail of Too Early by Tissot, 1873 1870s fashion in European and European-influenced clothing is characterized by a gradual return to a narrow silhouette after the full-skirted fashions of the 1850s and 1860s. ... Fashions of 1888 feature full busts, large bustles, and wide shoulders Fashion in the 1880s in European and European-influenced countries is characterized by the return of the bustle. ...

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.

Approx. second half of 1880's poster showing Annie Oakley wearing short-skirted attire Image File history File links Miss-Annie-Oakley-peerless-wing-shot. ... Annie Oakley (August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) b. ...

A 1897 ad, showing a relatively early example of an ordinary non-sea-bathing woman in public view in unskirted garments (to ride a bicycle) Image File history File links Download high resolution version (563x854, 119 KB) This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... “Velo” redirects here. ...

The 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. Image File history File links Wigan pit brow lass. ... Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, North West England. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Pants. ...

See also

• Bicycle (see section on female emancipation)
• History of the bicycle (see 1890s)

“Velo” redirects here. ... Vehicles for human transport that have two-wheels and require balancing by the rider have a long history. ...

References

• Reforming Women's Fashion, 1850-1920: Politics, Health and Art, Patricia A. Cunningham, Kent State University Press, 2003
• Die Frauenkleidug von Dr. C H. Stratz 1902
• Die Kultur des weiblichen Körpers als Grundlage der Frauenkleidung Paul Schultze-Naumburg 1901

• http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Corset_%3B_%C3%A9tude_physiologique_et_pratique_1900 Inès Gaches-Sarraute

External links

• Dress Reform
• Dress reform exhibition
• Victorian web
• Dress reform
• Rational dress
• "Woman's Dress: A Question of the Day", interesting 1894 pamphlet by Lelia A. Davis