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Bikes and Bloomers

Victorian Women Inventors and their Extraordinary Cycle Wear

Kat Jungnickel (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

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English
Goldsmiths, University of London
25 February 2020
An illustrated history of the evolution of British women's cycle wear.

The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women's liberation. Less noted is another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives-cycle wear. This illustrated account of women's cycle wear from Goldsmiths Press brings together Victorian engineering and radical feminist invention to supply a missing chapter in the history of feminism.

Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were unworkable, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing ""rational"" cycle wear could provoke verbal and sometimes physical abuse from those threatened by newly mobile women. Seeking a solution, pioneering women not only imagined, made, and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertible costumes that enabled wearers to transform ordinary clothing into cycle wear.

Drawing on in-depth archival research and inventive practice, Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the little-known stories of six inventors of the 1890s. Alice Bygrave, a dressmaker of Brixton, registered four patents for a skirt with a dual pulley system built into its seams. Julia Gill, a court dressmaker of Haverstock Hill, patented a skirt that drew material up the waist using a mechanism of rings or eyelets. Mary and Sarah Pease, sisters from York, patented a skirt that could be quickly converted into a fashionable high-collar cape. Henrietta M ller, a women's rights activist of Maidenhead, patented a three-part cycling suit with a concealed system of loops and buttons to elevate the skirt. And Mary Ann Ward, a gentlewoman of Bristol, patented the ""Hyde Park Safety Skirt,"" which gathered fabric at intervals using a series of side buttons on the skirt. Their unique contributions to cycling's past continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.

An illustrated history of the evolution of British women's cycle wear.

The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women's liberation. Less noted is another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives-cycle wear. This illustrated account of women's cycle wear from Goldsmiths Press brings together Victorian engineering and radical feminist invention to supply a missing chapter in the history of feminism.

Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were unworkable, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing ""rational"" cycle wear could provoke verbal and sometimes physical abuse from those threatened by newly mobile women. Seeking a solution, pioneering women not only imagined, made, and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertible costumes that enabled wearers to transform ordinary clothing into cycle wear.

Drawing on in-depth archival research and inventive practice, Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the little-known stories of six inventors of the 1890s. Alice Bygrave, a dressmaker of Brixton, registered four patents for a skirt with a dual pulley system built into its seams. Julia Gill, a court dressmaker of Haverstock Hill, patented a skirt that drew material up the waist using a mechanism of rings or eyelets. Mary and Sarah Pease, sisters from York, patented a skirt that could be quickly converted into a fashionable high-collar cape. Henrietta M ller, a women's rights activist of Maidenhead, patented a three-part cycling suit with a concealed system of loops and buttons to elevate the skirt. And Mary Ann Ward, a gentlewoman of Bristol, patented the ""Hyde Park Safety Skirt,"" which gathered fabric at intervals using a series of side buttons on the skirt. Their unique contributions to cycling's past continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.
By:  
Imprint:   Goldsmiths, University of London
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 178mm,  Spine: 25mm
Weight:   536g
ISBN:   9781912685431
ISBN 10:   1912685434
Series:   Goldsmiths Press
Pages:   336
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Kat Jungnickel is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department of Goldsmiths, University of London and the author of Bikes and Bloomers- Victorian Women Inventors and Their Extraordinary Cycle Wear (Goldsmiths Press).

Reviews for Bikes and Bloomers: Victorian Women Inventors and their Extraordinary Cycle Wear

This brilliant book is a wonderful insight into the inventiveness and strength of women at the vanguard of societal changes and these stories - many of which Kat has uncovered for the first time in a century - are truly inspiring. -Laura Laker, Casquette At its heart, this is a story of imagination and the freedoms we take for granted: what we wear, where we go and how we get there. It is about the strictures of gender, and the social and historical cost of resisting them. Brimming with hope, it shows us how we might refashion our realities with ignition and grit. -Vonny Leclerc, Spectator The story is as extraordinary as the garments themselves. -Jacqueline Banerjee, Times Literary Supplement


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