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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, 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. Reformers were also influential in persuading women to adopt simplified garments for athletic activities such as bicycling or swimming. In 1851 Elizabeth Smith Miller adopted a rational costume of loose trousers gathered at the ankles topped by a short dress, which Amelia Bloomer promoted in her magazine The Lily, giving the Bloomers their name.
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 as well. They wanted the vote and some of them wanted sensible clothing as well.
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. A woman wearing trousers? Never!
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, as a women's athletic costume in the 1890s and early 1900s.
Reformers turned their attention to undergarments, which could be modified without attracting ridicule. 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 .. 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 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. The bodices had to be fitted by a dressmaker; patterns could be ordered through the mail.
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 enveighed 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. Normal corseting was one thing ... but tightlacing!
The Rational Dress Society was an organisation founded in 1881 at London. It described its purpose thus:
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The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/victorian_dress_reform 1/14/06
Designer Definition (from U.S Department of Labor)
The bloomer episode is the clearest case study in how dress reform worked. The costume itself was practical: loose trousers gathered at the ankles under a short dress gave a woman freedom to walk, work and move that long skirts denied her. Its promoters were formidable, women active in the anti-slavery and temperance movements whose experience in public speaking and political agitation led them to demand emancipation for themselves, including the vote and sensible clothing. Yet the Bloomers were subjected to ceaseless ridicule in the press and harassment on the street, and Amelia Bloomer herself dropped the fashion in 1859, saying a new invention, the crinoline, was a sufficient reform that she could return to conventional dress. The costume died temporarily and returned much later as a women's athletic costume in the 1890s and early 1900s, when bicycling made divided garments a practical necessity rather than a political statement.
The contrast with undergarment reform explains the difference. A public costume is an argument worn in the street, and it draws the street's reply. An undergarment is invisible, so it can be judged on comfort and health alone. The emancipation union under flannel, first sold in America in 1868, combined a waist, or shirt, and drawers, or leggings, in the form now known as the union suit; designed for women, it was also adopted by men and is still sold and worn as winter underclothing. In 1878 German professor Gustav Jaeger published a book claiming only clothing made of animal hair, such as wool, promoted health; British accountant Lewis Tomalin translated it and opened a shop selling Dr Jaeger's Sanitary Woollen System, including knitted wool union suits, soon called Jaegers and widely popular. The emancipation waist, or bodice, attacked the corset directly: a tight sleeveless vest buttoning up the front, with rows of buttons along the bottom to which petticoats and skirt could be attached, so the entire torso supported their weight, not just the waist. It had to be fitted by a dressmaker and patterns could be ordered by mail, a distribution system that let a reform garment spread without ever being displayed.
The reformers' critique of the corset joined a throng of voices against tightlacing, the pursuit of the tiniest waist in the ballroom. Preachers inveighed against it, doctors counselled patients against it, and journalists wrote articles condemning the vanity and frivolity of women who would sacrifice health for fashion. That coalition matters to how the movement should be read. Dress reform was not a fringe of eccentrics; on tightlacing it overlapped with medicine, religion and the press. Its weaker point was the one its opponents exploited: normal corseting was one thing, and most women wore corsets without tightlacing, so a campaign against the extreme could be answered by defending the ordinary. Reformers were most effective where they offered a replacement that worked, a union suit, a bodice, a cycling costume, rather than where they only condemned.
The Rational Dress Society, founded in London in 1881, stated the mature position. It protested 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, naming tightly fitting corsets, high-heeled shoes, heavily weighted skirts that rendered healthy exercise almost impossible, tie-down cloaks and other garments impeding the arms, and crinolines or crinolettes of any kind as ugly and deforming. Its positive requirement completes the argument: all should be dressed healthily, comfortably and beautifully, seeking what conduces to health, comfort and beauty in dress as a duty. Beauty is included deliberately. Reform that conceded beauty to fashion would always lose wearers to fashion; the Society claimed all three goods at once, which is the standard by which the whole movement, bloomers included, asked to be judged.
The bloomer suit was the rational costume adopted in 1851 by Elizabeth Smith Miller: loose trousers gathered at the ankles, like trousers worn by Middle Eastern and Central Asian women, topped by a short dress or skirt and vest. Elizabeth Cady Stanton adopted it, Amelia Bloomer promoted it in The Lily, and its wearers were dubbed Bloomers.
Undergarments could be modified without exposing the wearer to social ridicule, because they were not publicly visible. The emancipation union under flannel was sold in America from 1868, and the emancipation bodice replaced the corset while supporting petticoats and skirt from the whole torso rather than just the waist.
Founded in London in 1881, the Rational Dress Society protested against any fashion that deforms the figure, impedes movement or injures health: tightly fitting corsets, high-heeled shoes, heavily weighted skirts, tie-down cloaks and crinolines or crinolettes of any kind.