Fig. 81.—A peasant woman of Champéry wearing trousers.
Trousers are often wrongly thought to be a modern invention, and it is easy to go away with the idea that they are exclusively the attributes of men. This is far from being the case, and as in Scotland we find the petticoat still in use by men, so in France and Switzerland (see Figure [81]) we see the peasant woman wearing trousers of the ordinary type, to say nothing of Oriental countries like Persia and Siam (see Plate [V]), where trousers form part of the dress of women even of the highest rank.
A Siamese Princess, shewing the trousers worn by women of high rank.
PLATE V.
We must not forget the energetic crusade which is being carried on in this country in favour of “rational dress” for women, on lines which are more sensible than those laid down by Mrs. Bloomer, whose name has been immortalized in connection with divided garments for women. It is not intended, at the moment, to enter into a discussion of the advantages that may be gained by banishing the skirt, as we shall consider clothes, from the point of view of their effect upon the body, in a later chapter. Suffice it to say that the ugly clothes worn a few years ago by lady bicyclists who, while adopting divided garments, tried to make them look like a skirt, did much to hinder the “rational dress” movement.