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Concept
Victorian dress reform
Summary
Victorian dress reform was an objective of the Victorian dress reform movement (also known as the rational dress movement) of the middle and late Victorian era, led by various reformers who proposed, designed, and wore clothing considered more practical and comfortable than the fashions of the time.
Dress reformists were largely middle-class women involved in the first wave of feminism in the Western World, from the 1850s through the 1890s. The movement emerged in the Progressive Era along with calls for temperance, women's education, suffrage and moral purity. Dress reform called for emancipation from the "dictates of fashion", expressed a desire to "cover the limbs as well as the torso adequately," and promoted "rational dress". 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 movement was much less concerned with men's clothing, although it initiated the widespread adoption of knitted wool union suits or long johns.
Some of the movement's proponents established dress reform parlors, or storefronts, where women could buy sewing patterns for the garments, or buy them directly.
Fashion in the 1850s through the 1880s accented large crinolines, cumbersome bustles and padded busts with tiny waists laced into 'steam-moulded corsetry'. 'Tight-lacing' became part of the corset controversy: dress reformists claimed that the corset was prompted by vanity and foolishness, and harmful to health. The reported health risks included damaged and rearranged internal organs, compromised fertility; weakness and general depletion of health. Those who were pro-corset argued that it was required for stylish dress and had its own unique pleasures. Eventually, the reformers' critique of the corset joined a throng of voices clamoring against tightlacing, which became gradually more common and extreme as the 19th century progressed.
Official source
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