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ON THE BRIN
RESPECTABILITY AND REBELLION IN SUFFRAGETTE FASHION
Men cannot imagine a woman, dressed as women have seen fit to dress for the last few years, being competent to take any serious or worthy part in the work of the world. He cannot believe in a woman being capable of efficient, vigorous, or independent action when hampered by the skirt of the period. A man knows that if for a year he were to submit himself to the restraints which a woman puts upon herself, he would mentally, morally, and physically degenerate.
London Times Weekly, 17 April 1914
The period before the Great War is often referred to as a time of peace. Some historians even call it the âGolden Summerâ when privileged members of society enjoyed the pleasures of Henley, Ascot and the London Season. In many ways, pre-war clothes reflected this affluence and confidence. But images of complacent women in couture clothes are far from being the complete picture of life before the guns of August 1914.
âHow do you like this?â asks the sender of this 1911 postcard depicting âLa Jupe Culotteâ â the French term for the short-lived fad for fancy trousers, rarely worn by any but dedicated fashionistas.
Our average middle-class lady, once dressed for the day, may well have added a few rather radical accessories to her ensemble before leaving the house. Perhaps she took up a parasol with an extra stout handle â perfect for beating off Bobbies. Perhaps she filled her embroidered handbag with stones for window-breaking, chalk for writing slogans on paving slabs and a length of metal chain with a padlock, so she will have time to say her piece at the railings of 10 Downing Street before men come with bolt cutters. As for the leather bag she collected from its hiding place in the wardrobe â it could have contained a hissing and spluttering time bomb engineered by an ingenious chemist.
In case of arrest and detention at His Majestyâs pleasure, she could also carry a toothbrush, for this is the age of the suffragette â and her buttoned-up boots have joined the march for emancipation.
Screaming with rage
Letter-box firings, large-scale arson, general vandalism, infantry marches, infiltration operations and subversive propaganda ⌠itâs clear that long before shots are fired in Sarajevo to precipitate the great battles of the First World War, the women of Britain were already at war, all in the name of freedom.
Before the twentieth century, the fight had been relatively bloodless and rather one-sided. The first petition advocating womenâs suffrage was presented to Parliament in 1832, without response. This was added to, year on year, by the campaigning of non-militant suffrage societies, with some rather brilliant legal challenges (unsuccessful) as well as repeated, rational appeals for government support (equally impressive and unsuccessful).
What was new as the Edwardian era unfolded was the sheer escalation of rebellion, and the outrageous destructive force of some suffrage factions. The year 1903 saw the founding of Emmeline Pankhurstâs Womenâs Social Political Union (WSPU). This ushered in an age of militant agitators, dubbed âsuffragettesâ by the popular press. The fight for any kind of legal, political or sartorial freedom was slow, and usually greeted with derision or suspicion. Clothes and appearance, far from being a frivolous topic, were of great significance to all women attempting to edge their way into the political arena.
Conflict over clothing limitations began to show in fashion in the nineteenth century, corresponding with a rise in womenâs demand for fewer political disadvantages. In the 1850s, the American Amelia Bloomer had famously popularised a smart suit of matching bodice, skirt and trousers. Her outfit raised many eyebrows, but no sustained show of striding about without petticoats. It was simply too radical an idea. Later in the century, inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art, reformists introduced picturesque but impractical gowns, which at least rejected the worst offences of corset constriction and steel caging. By the 1880s, a craze for bicycling created a need for a costume that could cope with legs, chains and wheels. Sporty women became enthusiastic about divided skirts or even â how daring! â knickerbockers with boots and gaiters.
How women reacted to their limitations varied. An anecdote from Charles Darwinâs granddaughter Gwen Raverat illustrates both the noisy and the quiet protest. In her memoirs she recalls, without fondness, the day that she and her adolescent sister Margaret were compelled to put on full adult corsets to signify their passage into puberty. Margaret âran round and around the nursery screaming with rage. I did not do that, I simply went away and took them off.â
Gwenâs silent rebellion was shared by many other women who resorted to the compromise of unlacing their stays when the dayâs work was done, while feeling a seething undercurrent of discontent. Margaretâs outrage is more symbolic of the energetic and increasingly violent protests women undertook when it became clear that peaceful deputations to Parliament were having no significant effect.
Gwen concludes, âThe thought of the discomfort, restraint and pain, which we had to endure from our clothes makes me even angrier now than it did then; for in those days nearly everyone accepted their inconveniences as inevitable.â At 18 years old she decided never to fuss about clothes, and she made no overt fuss about politics either. In contrast, suffragist and journalist Evelyn Sharp was critical of all restrictions, commenting quietly in her 1928 memoirs, âNo woman of to-day would go back if she could to the conditions which her grandmother endured.â
Just as it was considered natural for womenâs bodies to be shaped by their corsets, so a domestic, subordinate role was also considered natural for females, regardless of whatever capabilities they might possess beyond the scope of wife and mother. Daily Mail writer Lilian Bell gave voice to the feelings of many in a 1906 article: âAn unhappy married woman is a freak. So is a woman with a career. Both are outside of what God and nature intended them to be.â
For many women, stepping out from a sheltered home life or a respectable job was a tremendous risk. No wonder they make note of how they dressed for the part. The youngest Pankhurst daughter, Adela, reveals a touching combination of vulnerability and excitement as she describes the outfit she wore to make the brave move from Manchester to London, to undertake a bolder suffragist role:
I, in a home-made coat and skirt, home-trimmed hat, with a monthâs salary in my Dorothy bag, had set forth to regenerate mankind. I was rushing into it and the express train, tear along at what speed it would, was too slow for me.
(Quoted in Rebel Girls by Jill Liddington)
Travelling alone, gathering in large groups, speaking in public â these were not normal activities for decent females. Somehow women had to manage to fight for new freedoms while hampered by their clothes. However, in their quest for new rights, the suffragettes most certainly did not storm the Houses of Parliament in breeches or knickerbockers, much as they might have appreciated the liberty of movement. The arsonists, bombers and window-breakers did not dress for warfare in conventional khaki uniforms, nor did they carry out covert operations in camouflage gear.
This elegant pre-war two-piece costume is rich with textures â lace, gauze, velvet and damask silk. The skirt trails the ground, and the hem is protected by a balayeuse, or âsweeperâ ruffle. What might the beautiful beaded bag contain?
Their stealth wear was conventional street wear. They quite deliberately decided to dress as ladies.
Her hatâs never on straight
It took a great deal of effort, energy and expenditure to be correctly dressed at this time. Success met with social approval. Proper clothes suggested proper behaviour, and the suffragettes did not wish to be derided as âunwomanlyâ.
It was far easier to mock the suffragettes and their cause than to take their ideas seriously, such was their threat to traditional notions of gender roles in Edwardian Society.
Cartoonists had a marvellous time lampooning the âshrieking sisterhoodâ of suffragists, as they became known. Echoing the prejudices of men like Sir Almroth Wright, who considered such women to be unattractive to men, and therefore sexually embittered, the satirical image of the suffragette was of a badly dressed, bespectacled and rather hairy female with large feet.
Feisty campaigner Ada Nield Chew, notoriously haphazard in her clothes, regretted this stereotype. In a letter to the Common Cause magazine in 1913 she quoted an anonymous chap whoâd quipped, âYou can always tell Suffragists by the way they are dressed. Thereâs Mrs Chew, for instance â her hatâs never on straight!â Adaâs daughter Doris, interviewed many years later, wisely commented in a book about her motherâs life, âHow much easier it would have been today when she would not have needed to wear a hat!â
All suffrage societies were aware of the need to make strenuous efforts to soften the negative stereotypical image. In The Cause, suffragette historian Ray Strachey, an active member of the National Union of Womenâs Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), recorded the opinions of many of her contemporaries on pioneering women, as when Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson deplored the fact that one of her female medical students âlooks so awfully strong-minded in walking dress ⌠she has short petticoats and a close round hat and several dreadfully ugly arrangements ⌠It is abominable, and most damaging to the causeâ. Ray Strachey herself wrote candidly of fellow suffragettes in The Cause: âSome of them were young and beautiful, and others were rather less young and much less beautiful ⌠It cannot be denied that among these brave and devoted women there were a few who were not only plain, but positively uncouth to the outward eye.â
At political meetings where the press were present, these âuncouthâ women were discretely placed so as not to catch attention. It is sad to think that matters of looks and dress couldnât be set aside when fighting for such important issues, and that intelligent arguments wouldnât be taken seriously if, as Strachey writes, âpresented by a lady in thick boots, untidy hair, and a crumpled dressâ.
One woman uncomfortable with fashion dictates was Cicely Hamilton, a hard-working actress, author and playwright, whose suffrage works include the play How the Vote was Won and the does-what-it-says-in-the-title book Marriage as a Trade. Her passion for emancipation was dampened by the need to toe the party line regarding clothes, so that the press couldnât dismiss suffragists as unwomanly or eccentric. Hamilton prefered to wear tailored jackets and skirts but tried to appear in public dressed in a softer style. Time & Tide magazine in January 1923 reported that she âsacrificed her individualism to the extent of adopting the conventionally feminine form of dressâ. She disagreed with the dictatorship style of the WSPU, particularly in matters of appearance.
In Hamiltonâs unpublished one-act play, The Pot and The Kettle, an anti-suffrage character speaks of the frustration of not knowing how to spot those beastly suffragettes: âshe had on a fawn coat and a black hat with daisies on it; but she was really a suffragette â though I didnât know it â she looked just like everyone elseâ.
As for Emmeline Pankhurst, she followed her own criteria for a ladylike appearance. It was said of her that she dressed with âthe elegance of a Frenchwoman and the neatness of a nunâ.
The oldest Pankhurst daughter, Christabel, despite private misgivings that putting too great an emphasis on grace and charm would disguise the fundamentally radical nature of their cause, followed the general suffragist tactic of looking ladylike. Being qualified as a barrister â though not permitted to practise law because of her gender â Christabel managed to use an appearance before magistrates in order to call cabinet minister Lloyd George to the witness stand. To disarm initial hostility she wore a fresh white muslin dress with a coloured sash. Lloyd George was, however, soon under attack from Christabelâs decisive arguments and biting sarcasm.
And the sash? This one note of colour in her pretty white outfit? It was a striking belt of three colours that were to become synonymous with the suffrage cause: green, white and purple.
Green for hope
The WSPU meant business. They deliberately chose an insignia that would unite their members with a strong sense of identity and common purpose. The tricolour designs became instantly recognisable as a âbrandâ, which was hugely important as women fought to get media coverage from journalists reluctant to devote newspaper inches to what was, at first, a minority cause.
White was the predominant colour. This was common to the WSPU and to another major suffrage group often overshadowed by WSPU notoriety â the non-militant NUWSS. White was to repres...
