Fashion
The invention of the bicycle encouraged women to participate in dress reform. Before the invention of the bicycle fashion was only ever considered to objectify women. Clothes were never their own, women fainted while wearing corsets and dealt with long, heavy, borderline hazardous skirts that made getting anything done rather difficult. Dress reform became a difficult sell when women were trying to prioritize efficiency in a world where fashion sold better “than any consideration of comfort, beauty, or even health.”[1]
[1] 1. “The Wheelasa Reformer: What One Woman’s Bicycle Has Taught Her About Clothes.,” New York Times, December 1, 1895.
Bicycles and Dress Reform
Women were sold things; they were the top consumers. With this, changing the narrative was tedious if not impossible. The bicycle craze was the push they needed. It “demanded a sensible dress.”[1] The first “bicycle suit” was formed in the mid-1890s. This suit contained an “old black silk waist, an old skirt shortened, black mohair bloomers, and black canvas leggins.”[2]On old news articles they would put instructions on how to transform old vest and drawers into reform garments. The paper was the best way to advertise your product to consumers. In this instance, the consumers being women and the product being bicycle suits. This reached an even bigger purpose; it gave women a place to fellowship.
[1] 2. “The Wheelasa Reformer: What One Woman’s Bicycle Has Taught Her About Clothes.,” New York Times, December 1, 1895.
[2] 3. “The Wheelasa Reformer: What One Woman’s Bicycle Has Taught Her About Clothes.,” New York Times, December 1, 1895.
Frances Willard led the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement in 1895. She was also the author of the novel, A Wheel within a Wheel: How I learned to Ride the Bicycle, which acted as her own personal memoir and love letter to cycling in her late stages of life to improve her health. She used this book to call to action a need for more sensible clothing for women.
She wrote:
“A woman with [bustle] bands hanging on her hips, and dress snug about the waist and chokingly tight at the throat, with heavy trimmed skirts dragging down the back and numerous folds heating the lower part of the spine, and with tight shoes, ought to be in agony. If women ride, they must…dress more rationally… If they do this, many prejudices will melt away. Reason will gain upon precedent and ere long the comfortable, sensible, and artistic wardrobe of the rider will make the conventional style of women’s dress absurd to the eye and un-durable to the understanding.”[1]
[1] 4. “Pedaling the Path to Freedom,” National Women’s History Museum, June 27, 2017, https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/pedaling-path-freedom.
Ferris' Good Sense Corset Waist For Bicycle Wear ad, 1897 (National Museum of American History)
“500 Eclipse Bicycles .” The New York Times, August 29, 1900.
