Let us see what the tendency now is with regard to a rational dress for women. Mrs. Bloomer had a skirt just below the knees, and trousers gathered in at the ankles. The modern bloomers come only to the knee, but really, as Dr. Bernard O’Connor says when writing in the Gazette published by the Rational Dress League,[63] “they are made too full.” Dr. O’Connor recommends for active exercise, such as cycling, something like a sailor’s jacket and sailor’s trousers, but the latter should end and be gathered in at the knees. In addition there should be long tight stockings, and Dr. O’Connor adds that tights throughout would be preferable to the ordinary bloomers.
It would seem, however, that this dress for general use might be improved as regards both form and elegance, and that a long coat or tunic, reaching nearly to the knees, with fairly tight knickerbockers, is the rational dress that is most to be commended for women.
[CONCLUSION]
By way of ending, we would again point out that the account which we have given of survivals in dress and their history, shows that they in their development are governed by the same laws as those which act on the bodies and organs of living creatures, and we hope that what we have gathered together may be taken as a small contribution to “the proper study of mankind,” which we have been told times out of number is nothing more nor less than “man.”
[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
The small numbers given in the text correspond with those printed here.