No account of dress and its developments would be complete without a reference to Mrs. Bloomer and the garments which now bear her name, and are emblematical of rational costume. That women have no absolute claim to petticoats as their own special dress has been made quite clear, and it is equally evident that in many places they wear trousers as a matter of course. Still, in this country there seems to be a rooted objection on the part of the majority to doffing skirts, though this seems, however, to be growing less day by day, in spite of the many reasons which cause the fair sex to cling to petticoats. As we have found before, garments which fall to the ground give dignity, and women sacrifice their dignity with difficulty. Yet, as need hardly be pointed out, men do not wear dressing-gowns when they are jumping, nor fur-trimmed mantles when they go to business. Dresses with trains could be kept for ceremonial occasions, or when there is nothing much to be done, or again, we might add, when there is little dust to be raised.
Fig. 169.—A modern family, consisting of the average-sized mother, the taller daughter, and the puny boy (from a drawing by Miss Audrey Watson in “Physical Efficiency,” by Dr. Cantlie, by kind permission of Messrs. Putnam’s Sons).
Bacteriology has shown us that the long skirt disseminates germs as it trails along the ground; in fact, it stirs them up for other people to breathe, and the culprit herself carries off as her fair share a large quantity which settles on her dress. In this way the germs of disease are carried home to the dwelling-house.
In these days also, when women even jump on and off motor omnibuses before they are at a stand-still, it is evident that long frocks are objectionable and dangerous.
When lady gardeners were first employed at Kew Gardens, it was found that their skirts got in the way, and were liable to damage the plants. The Director ordered that the girls should wear a suitable costume, and they adopted divided garments, though it must be said that they covered them to some extent with an apron. In riding-dress of course ladies wear trousers under their habits when they use a side saddle, although it has been considered right of recent years for them to ride astride, and from time to time we hear that it is being done. In the time of Stephen and of Edward III women rode astride, and the ladies in Mexico and other parts of America regularly do so at the present time.
Chaucer described “The Wife of Bath” as wearing “on her feet a paire of spurries sharpe.” From this we may judge that she also adopted a cross saddle, and as a matter of fact in the Elesmere MSS. we find a picture of her, showing that she rode astride, and was dressed in a curious garment like a divided bag. On the Continent, ladies who go shooting very often dress like their husbands, and a year or two ago the American newspapers were full of accounts of a lady who imitated the riding costume of a hunting man to the smallest detail. Apropos of this, The Field[61] told an amusing story of an English lady who in a measure unintentionally forestalled our American cousins, for after she had had the best part of her habit carried away by some aggressive brambles, she was seen scudding after her horse in a pair of real top boots.
Divided garments only appear unfeminine because we are unaccustomed to see them on ladies, and it is no secret that they are worn to a very great extent under skirts. Doubtless there may be some to whom the very idea of such a thing is abhorrent, and possibly there are still wardrobes like those of a good lady mentioned by Miss Alice Morse Earle[62] in her book on the “Costume of Colonial Times.” She was the wife of a respectable and well-to-do Dutch settler in the New Netherlands, and her name was Vrouentje Ides Stoffelsen, and she left behind her in 1641, “a gold hoop ring, a silver medal and chain, and a silver undergirdle to hang keys on; a damask furred jacket, two black camlet jackets, two doublets, one iron gray, the other black; a blue, a steel-gray lined petticoat, and a black coarse camlet-lined petticoat; two black skirts, a new bodice, two white waistcoats, one of Harlem stuff; a little black vest with two sleeves, a pair of damask sleeves, a reddish mourning gown, not linen; four pair pattens, one of Spanish leather; a purple apron and four blue aprons, nineteen cambric caps and four linen ones; a fur cap trimmed with beaver; nine linen handkerchiefs trimmed with lace, two pair of old stockings, and three shifts. One disposed to be critical might note the somewhat scanty proportion of underclothing in this wardrobe, and as Ides’s husband swore ‘by his manly troth’ that the list of her possessions was a true and complete one, we are forced to believe that it was indeed all the underclothing she possessed.”
It seems, however, as we have said before, that the actual ugliness of many of the so-called bloomer costumes which were in vogue a few years ago, did much to keep back progress in the direction of their adoption. It seems as if women were frightened, as it were, to go the whole hog, and instead of wearing neat knickerbockers they had them exceedingly baggy and inelegant, or adopted a kind of hybrid costume, half bloomers and half skirt.