Where there’s a wheel: how the Victorians fashioned a solution to cycling in a skirt
VICTORIAN women invented “convertible skirts” with secret pulley mechanisms to allow them to cycle freely, a university academic has found.
While bicycles were popular among middle and upper-class women in the 19th century, restrictive skirts and dresses meant that it could be dangerous to cycle.
It was common for long skirts and dresses to catch in bicycle wheels or pedals. Onlookers often hurled abuse and stones at female cyclists, while conservative social attitudes meant that it was unacceptable to appear in public wearing trousers.
Dr Kat Jungnickel, a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, said convertible skirts allowed women to secretly switch between their walking and cycling identities without being harassed.
Her research shows the invention of dresses with pulleys, concealed loops and buttons that made travel easier and safer. Women riding bicycles were able to get around more quickly, without being chaperoned in public by a man.
As part of her project, Dr Jungnickel recreated some of the designs and tested them with vintage bicycles.
“The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women’s liberation,” she said.
“But less is noted about another vehicle through which women forged new mobile public lives – cycle wear.”
Dr Jungnickel’s research, revealed in a book, Bicycles and Bloomers – released today – is focused on the cities of London, York, Maidenhead and Bristol, and tells the story of six women who built women’s cycling clothes. “Pat- ented convertible cycle wear is an exciting example of women’s inventive contributions to cycling’s past,” she said.
“They actively and directly worked with and around barriers that sought to prevent them from cycling and engaging more broadly in public life.”
Alice Bygrave, a dressmaker from Brixton, south London, registered patents for a skirt with a dual pulley system sewn into its seams and Mary and Sarah Pease, sisters from York, patented a skirt that could be converted into a fashionable high-collar cape.