Today most people wouldn’t bat an eye at a women wearing pants or a bow tie (in the western world), but it wasn’t always this way. In fact, prior to the late 19th and early 20th century, social customs were very strict regarding women’s clothing, with women wearing dresses, underskirts and painfully tight corsets. In the 1850’s, women’s rights activist, Amelia Bloomer, started to shake things up. She advocated for women to ditch the tight corsets and heavy petticoats worn under their skirts. Initially inspired from Turkish dress, the wide lose fitting pants worn under a knee length skirt, were aptly named the “Bloomer”.
