MRS BLOOMER AFTER EIGHTY YEARS

Evening Star, Issue 21624, 20 January 1934, Page 20

MRS BLOOMER AFTER EIGHTY YEARS

DRESS INNOVATIONS INCLUDE SHORTS AND SLACKS It is more than eighty years ago since Mrs Bloomer introduced her famous garment that was the forerunner of the modern trousered mode for women. What a world-wide controversy it aroused! The controversy has lately broken out again, because a young girl tourist was daring enough to wear flannel slacks m the sacred precincts of Federal 'Parliament House, Australia. Mrs Bloomer, in her costume which consisted of a tight jacket, a skirt to the knee, and, beneath it a pair of Turkish trousers, ..suffered social martyrdom for her boldness in thus caricaturing male attire, but she stuck to her gun. Certainly her style of dress was never popular with either sex. But the usefulness of the mode was proved by the fact that the garment she invented has, in its abbreviated lorm, been worn by women ever since. It is more than eighty years ago, too, that Rosa Bonheur, a famous French artist, astounded her own country by her trousered form of dress which she considered far more sensible for the horse fairs and bazaars where she found the subjects for her brush. She had to obtain special permission from her Government to wear the dress she adopted, because it was illegal for women to appear in public in trousers in those days. She was another pioneer of slacks. She showed that women have just as much right to wear the clothes suitable for their work and play; as men have. Then Australia had its own feminine wearer of trousers in the last century. Sixty years ago “ Bullocky Mary ” was a well-known character in the goldiields of Ararat and Stawell in Victoria. Dressed like a man, she drove her own team of bullocks, even using the appropriate language for bullocks. Women in the bush have for many years past worn men’s clothing when going about their work in the orchard, in the poultry run, and the piggeries. Trousers for women are no new fad. When the Duke of Edinburgh, on his visit to Ballarat, Victoria, went down a mine, accompanied by a Vice-Regal party, including several ladies, ■ all members of the party wore miner’s dress, which aroused much interest at the time. It is almost certain that, whether men like it or not, women will continue to wear the trousered mode for sports and informal occasions. The motor car has been responsible, to a great extent, for the general wearing of slacks and shorts by girls, for they find it far more comfortable to travel thus attired than in a skirt, which hinders their driving, and collects all the mud and grease about the ear and the road. ' How much easier it is to change a tvre when clad in trousers than in a clinging skirt with a petticoat underneath it. How much easier, too, to handle a vacht in a stiff nor’-east breeze, when the yachtswoman wears shorts or slacks. Saturday afternoon brings out whole regiments" of girls prepared for their week-end sailing, riding, tennis, or motoring, all dressed in the same trousered fashion, which, whatever else may be said about it. is eminently suited for the sport in which they are engaged. Sports have been responsible for a radical change in women’s underwear, and surfing has banished for ever the over-elaborate, much-hefrilled and embroidered type of lingerie, for these look ridiculous on limbs tanned by the sun to the colour of mahogany. Sunburnt backs, too, are proudly displayed in the evening, for now no fashionable evening dress possesses any back to it. This is a fashion which started in the ballroom, and found its way to the beach, for this season’s beach frocks have merely a couple of shoulder straps crossing at the back to keep the frock on, or else the bodice is suspended from a tie around the throat, leaving the back entirely exposed. Whether this fashion will remain is doubtful, for it may be classed among the freaks, in which also are the modern mode for vividly lacquered finger nails and lacquered hair. The

only thing to be said in their favour is that they are startling, and fashions which are startling only, without being practical, seldom survive the test of time. And time is the only thing that will accustom outraged parliamentarians to the sight of women wearing shirts and trousers, for it seems that this form of dress, so enthusiastically-adopted by women in the last few years, has come to staj T .