The Audacity of Pants

And now for your weekly history lesson. This week’s subject is Amelia Bloomer and her pants.

During the 1850’s, Amelia Bloomer created an uproar when she appeared in public wearing a bifurcated garment—a garment that splits into two parts, covering each leg separately. Americans were horrified by the “scandalous” outfit pictured below.

By today’s standards, Amelia’s bloomers look downright conservative, but Victorians were not ready for this revolutionary silhouette. The press mocked women who wore bloomers, calling them hermaphrodites. Even the suffragettes refused to adopt this controversial clothing style, thinking that pants were a distraction from more important woman’s rights issues, such as the right to vote.

Little did Amelia Bloomer know, her puffy pants would blaze a trail for the blue jeans that women all over the world wear today. During the first part of the 20th century, women who wore pants (and especially jeans!) shocked the public with their audacity. But with repeated exposure, the public finally began to accept the style. By the 1980’s pants and jeans of all sorts were considered appropriate attire for women at home, school, and work.

So if you’re a woman and jeans make up a big part of your wardrobe, it’s probably about time you pay your respects to trail blazer, Amelia Bloomer. Come to think of it, we here at indi have a lot of thanking to do ourselves. Without Amelia, we might have had to start a custom dress company…

posted by: danielle on July 27, 2009 at 4:30 pm
filed under: Misc Musings | comments (1)
TAGS: history of jeans, womens jeans

Back to blog home

On 07-31-2009, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said

Isn’t it wonderful that no one is required to wear disabling clothes anymore? It is much easier to carry stuff upstairs in a pair of jeans than in long dress. And jeans have all those lovely pockets! I never lose stuff if I put it in a pocket. Yay jeans!