As socially conscious Victorian women set out to reform the world, some began see a need to reform their own clothes as well. The "Dress Reform" movement became particularly vigorous in the English speaking world, with middle-class reformers on both sides of the Atlantic and through the British empire trying to find ways to make Victorian fashions healthier, easier to move in and more comfortable.
Alas for all their efforts, most Victorian women stuck to their unhealthy, restrictive and uncomfortable garments, preferring discomfort to attracting ridicule! As it happened, there was some movement towards more practical and comfortable dress in the forms of tea gowns for leisure and skirt suits for the "New" working woman. However it took a World War and some quite drastic social changes before the ideas of the dress reformers became fashionable.
Annie Jeuness Miller was an American editor and women's dress reformer. She created her own system of dress, which the Girl's Own Paper reported on in November 1890.
MRS. JEUNESS MILLER is as equally determined to abolish the corset as our own dress reformers, though she begins more circumspectly. But I find she has also been obliged to give way to those who desire a bodice of some kind, and has invented a very pretty-looking model bodice with a neck-yoke, the bodice buttoning in front and lacing at the back. The need felt for a bodice is probably owing to the lack of warmth realised when the stays are left off, and also to the want of support of some kind.
Our illustrations show the whole of the garments which Mrs Miller suggests. The first is the ordinary woven "combination", as we call it, which may be of silk, thread, cotton or wool, or, what is nearly as warm, of stout spun-silk. This garment we can now obtain of every good draper in England; and for India, of gauze, silk, or wool. The next garment in this system is called the "chemisette" and this is an improved cut of "combinations" or union dress, or the union of the drawers and chemise of old days. This garment has a yoke at the neck, and fits the figure closely. The next article of clothing is an improved version of the "divided skirt," which was invented by Lady Harberton, but has a better-fitting yoke, and is, in general aspects, more practical. These three last-named garments are made in all materials—cotton, flannel, mohair or alpaca, cashmere and silk. I find that Mrs Miller has much adopted the natural-coloured tussore as a material, and certainly nothing could prove a wiser selection, or wear better. "It washes like a rag," as the vulgar saying is...
...The chief thing to be noticed is the admirable idea of a dress-form, that is to say, a dress foundation—one on which every dress can be made, the trimmings being made to suit the prevailing styles, so that each may have her own taste unshackled, and wear what suits her best. This dress-form is accurately fitted, is well boned, and is made of the material of each dress. Our illustration of it shows exactly what it looks like, and how, by a clever alteration of Mrs Miller's own, the chief defect, so often found in the "Princess dress," is got over—i.e. the cutting across the front, so as to permit the skirt and the bodice being fitted accurately on the wearer...
The dresses we show in our illustrations were all made in this manner; and it can be gathered from them how easy it is to make any style of drapery or ornamentation to suit the foundation. The greatest freedom of movement is gained by the dress being made in one piece, and for the home dressmaker this seems an immense advance.
Mrs. Jeuness Miller considers that one of the great essentials for a perfectly health-promoting dress is to get rid of bands at the waist, and though the waist is larger, it is more natural in form, more healthy, and more comfortable. All the garments are made in one piece, and the weight and warmth are equally distributed. The ordinary dress is always worn, and there is no desire to have anything conspicuous or ugly; nothing revolutionary is intended, and there is nothing to attract attention in the reformed costume but its superior prettiness and grace.
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