Bloomer costume
Full trousers under a knee-length skirt – a proposal for freer women’s dress in 1851.
The newspaper editor Amelia Bloomer made the costume known in her paper The Lily. It drew ridicule and was soon abandoned, but the name lived on for full knickers and later sportswear. Examples are in the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum.
Materials: Cotton or wool
Manufacture: A short skirt over full trousers gathered at the ankle, without a corset.
The trousers showing beneath the skirt and gathered at the ankle.
The shorter skirt – without crinoline or train.