subject: What Is A Bloomer? [print this page] Bloomers are knee-length or ankle length pants that are worn by young girls and adult women. This bloomer are in part influenced by women's undergarments, and also partly influenced by middle-eastern clothing styles called "Syrian costume". Sometimes, women wear under formal gowns to make the gut stay in it makes them appear slimmer.
In detail,The original bloomers were an article of women's clothing invented by Elizabeth Smith Miller of Peterboro, NY and Fabrizia Flynn, wife of the Italian ambassador to Penrhiwceiber, south Wales, an early pioneer of the vulcanized rubber girdle, but popularized by Amelia Bloomer in the early 1850s.They were long baggy pants narrowing to a cuff at the ankles which are worn below a skirt, intended to preserve Victorian decency while being less of a hindrance to women's activities than the long full skirts of the period. They were worn by a few women in the 1850s, but were widely ridiculed in the press, and failed to become commonly accepted. Bloomer was an insult made up by the newspapers of the time. British explorer Richard Francis Burton, travelling across the United States in 1860 noted that he saw only one woman whom he called a "hermaphrodite" wearing bloomers. The costume was called the "American Dress" or "Reform Costume" by the women's activists that wore it. Most of the women who wore the costume were deeply involved in dress reform, abolition, temperance and the women's rights movement. Although practically, the "bloomers" were also an attempt to reform fashion since the majority of "bloomers" were also in upper to middle class and also in the public eye.
Bloomers invented by Amelia Jenks Bloomer in the 1850's. A short skirt buttoned down to the ankle(?) and worn with a wide hat and a coat In 1909, fashion designer Paul Poiret attempted to popularize harem pants worn below a long flaring tunic, but this attempted revival of fashion bloomers under another name did not catch on.
