Comic Postcards of "Harem Skirts" (1911)

It all begins with the designer Paul Poiret who liked playing with orientalist themes and created some daringly modern fashions in the decade before the First World War.  In 1911 he introduced his most controversial fashion to the world: "harem skirts".  His design, influenced by costumes from the Near East, consisted of billowing trousers gathered in at the ankles and worn under a tunic reaching to the instep.

Naturally something so new, and so shocking (Women in trousers!  Whatever next!) came in for a fair amount of ridicule.  In Britain comic postcards were just coming into their own.  The publishers and the cartoonists who worked for them couldn't resist joking about the latest nonsense to come out of Paris.

I found all these in a collectibles shop in Melbourne.  Where it's possible to work out a date for them they all date from 1911.  It's fairly safe to assume that the remainder are from that year too.

In spite of all the fuss—or because of it!—very few women, apart from a few avent garde fashionistas, wore "harem skirts".   However, only a few years some women did start wearing trousers—war workers. These practical garments were a far cry from Poriet's fantasy "harem" pants, and that is, as they say, another story.