In an era where fashion trends include platform crocs and mini-skirts the size of a belt, it may be surprising to know that 100 years ago such outlandishness was simply a shortened hem reaching your ankle. Inspired by the Stylist’s suffragette series, and with visual aid from the Museum of London and The British Library, this week’s House of Gharats suffragette style article explores how fashion trends of the suffragette era held a modern message. Although the concept of practicality has been vastly spread to include a number of questionable items in 2018, in 1910 practical meant the ability to move, keep your hat fastened to your head, and simply raise your arms above waist height.
A conventional outfit for some women in the early 1900s included an undergarment, a bodice, a corset, a shirt, a floor-length skirt, a tailored jacket, a large hat, scarf, and heeled boots. For the suffragettes, who needed to voice their concerns through ‘deeds not words’, what you wore held an immense purpose in spreading your message. Luckily conventional dress was changing in the early 1910s to encompass shorter skirts and lighter outerwear. Suffragettes fit within this development as they adopted easier wear to fit everyday lifestyle as well as marches and devised publicity campaigns. Choosing comfort empowered women. Physically being able to do the job meant fewer mistakes. Not having to worry about whether your lace hems would get ruined by the rain meant a stronger focus on what really mattered, the right to vote.
Historian Elizabeth Crawford told us …
‘What is interesting is how far fashion changed over that short period during the suffrage movement, by 1913 the general look was so much more tailored, skirts were narrower and shorter, women looked more athletic. Long line jackets on top created a much more streamlined look with smaller hats to match. By the time of the pilgrimage in 1913 (led by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies NUWSS) the women were wearing clothes quite different to what they had worn 4 years before that time.’
Suffragette style wasn’t frivolous or outlandish. It’s been noted in Cicely Hamilton’s memoirs that Emmeline Pankhurst advised very strongly against eccentricity in the matter of dress with the reasoning that it would shock male prejudice and make the vote harder to obtain. Rather, slight challenges to the status quo were encouraged. For instance, at the Chertsey Museum, there is a pair of stockings that have been hand embroidered with the suffragette’s motto in the colours of the cause. The women’s skirts that were relatively long at the time concealed the embroidery, located only towards the ankle. This meant the wearer could choose when and where to reveal her support. The concept of revealing one’s ankles was also associated with newer ideas of fashion and dress reform this time, so the stockings carry connotations of daring and modernity – qualities that attracted the younger women in society and made the cause more approachable.
When speaking to Elizabeth Crawford, whose work entails sorting through suffragette memorabilia, she told us that of the few sashes she had come across she found their heavy grosgrain material particularly interesting …
‘They are lovely objects, really quite heavy grosgrain material, and I think people must have had to alter them a bit to fit across. You see how much slimmer in general women must have been in those days. The last sash I saw there were hooks attached, with a small hook at the bottom. I realised this was to fit into the waistband of a skirt so that it would hold the sash taught across rather than the sash rising up.’
The WSPU focused on the ability to use clothes as part of the performance, so practical edits were vital to dress appropriately and commit the deeds. If the suffragettes did not dress “well” they were dismissed as unsuccessful women; if they did, they were condemned as “conventional” ones, incapable of thinking beyond their bonnets. To battle this dilemma the suffragettes adopted a conventional style in unconventional circumstances. Building conventional style into a practical purpose created the New Woman of the new century. Adapting traditional items and bringing a new and meaningful life to them is a method that resonates deeply with House of Gharats. With a focus on innovation the House of Gharats, like the stockings and sashes, re-fashion and reimagine traditional wear with a modern message.
As more and more women followed the suffragettes, stores began to sell fashion that catered to the demands of this New Woman. In return for revenue from advertising in Votes For Women and later, The Suffragette, the women’s press published advertisements of those stores that were selling suffragette-related wear. Debenham & Freebody, for example, made available knitter sports coats with caps to match and even comfortable corsets for those “marching and speaking”. In a move towards organized buying power, the WSPU, in an editorial called “Whet Your Weapon,” implored Votes for Women readers to approach shopping with the precision and single-mindedness of a military campaign –“let every woman who believed in this cause never enter a shop that does not advertise in Votes For Women.” Not only were the Suffragettes getting publicity and money, but they were also setting trends and therefore gaining a respected voice in society.
In order to gain an alternative perspective of the suffragettes and their style, we spoke to Naomi Paxton, an actress, writer and researcher who has worked closely with suffragette history in her performances and published work.
Suffragettes wore clothing in conventional ways to signify respectability, what do you think would have been the outcome if they challenged acceptable and fashionable dress when fighting for the vote?
Campaigners wore different outfits for different audiences, knowing how they would be read. Some used high fashion, some carefully dressed to adhere to conventions, femininity and domesticity, and some dressed to tell stories about perceptions of authenticity. During World War One many suffrage campaigners also set up organisations to support the war effort and designed their own uniforms that were about usefulness rather than decoration. Elements of these – for example, large and practical pockets – fed into wartime and post-war fashion.
In your opinion, how effective was style and fashion in the fight for the vote?
We can see from the number of advertisements for clothing, hats, shoes and accessories placed in suffrage newspapers that fashion was an important aspect of the wider campaign for votes for women, and suffrage newspapers urged readers to patronise the shops, designers and makers that supported the cause. The ‘costumes’ of suffrage campaigners served a number of different purposes and campaigners were very aware of negative stereotypes of suffragettes in cartoons, the popular press and on stage, which often portrayed female campaigners as older, unmarried, scruffy, violent, ugly and loud. For large events like the 1911 Coronation Procession, suffragists and suffragettes alike were asked to dress in white or pale colours and to march in step with each other to create a spectacle, not only of uniformity of look but also of purpose. Nowadays the colours most associated with the suffragettes are the purple, green and white of the Women’s Social and Political Union, but each suffrage society – and there were over fifty of them by 1914 – used different colours on their banners, sashes and badges. This meant that processions, meetings and marches were alive with vibrant hues – from the pink and green of the Actresses’ Franchise League to the black and gold of the Women Writers’ Suffrage League and the blue, white and gold of the Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society. The largest society, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society, used red, white and green, whilst the Women’s Freedom League was represented by green and gold. One of the most striking elements of suffrage processions was probably the WSPU Drum and Fife Band, an all-female marching band in purple, green and white uniforms. Reminiscent of Salvation Army bands, the Drum and Fife Band was also militaristic, marching through the streets of London and unapologetically taking up space, drawing attention and making noise. While some campaigners wanted to be as visible as possible, others preferred to signal their support in subtler ways and suffrage societies produced a huge range of branded goods and accessories so that the message of votes for women could become part of everyday life at home as well as through personal style choices.
How would you describe the modern day feminist? Do you think they use a style method in the same way as the suffragettes?
Modern day feminists, like the suffragettes, are very aware of how they are seen, and how past and present negative portrayals of feminists and feminism affect public perceptions. There are similar issues in terms of simplified messages like slogans on t-shirts being seen as problematic, but modern campaigners are just as canny as the suffragettes were in terms of finding strategies to harness media attention. However, some modern feminists use their physical bodies for display in a very different way to suffrage campaigners, and ideas around personal choice and perceptions of objectification and exploitation can be divisive within the modern movement.
Considering our exploration of dressing to empower, do you believe confidence has always, in the past and present, been linked to style?
I think it’s about perceptions and representations of what confident dressing is and how it manifests through individual style choices, as well as the actuality of those choices. It’s also about recognising how clothing maintains or signifies status or power in different environments. The motto of the Women’s Freedom League was ‘Dare to be free’, and for me feeling confident is about the freedom to present myself as I like, and the freedom to move in whatever I’m wearing, rather than to fit within a particular look or maintain one style. Clothes can certainly help people appear confident, which is a great start, but they are only part of the picture.
How does suffragette history inspire your style today? We’re aware of your performance at ‘Carry on Curating’ for the V&A and we’re curious to know whether you wore a suffragette outfit? If so can you tell us anything interesting you learnt when preparing your costume for the role?
One of the great things about being a performer is that you learn to look at yourself with an outside eye, and have the chance to try on different looks from different eras and feel how they alter the way you move, breathe and speak. I rarely dress up to perform, although sometimes it is fascinating to do. I once did a suffrage ju-jitsu demonstration in full Edwardian costume, including a large hat, and the restrictions on my posture and peripheral vision made the whole thing feel very different to how it had done when I learned it in tracksuit bottoms in the training room! I research the political theatre and entertainments of the votes for women campaign and often put productions and events on that include extracts from suffrage plays. I’m always wary of costuming the performers in Edwardian outfits because it places the work visually in a historical place that can obscure the power of the message. Suffrage campaigners dressed like everyone else, but with touches that identified them as activists, and I want modern audiences to hear the still relevant messages about equality in suffrage plays from performers in modern dress. I may not look dressed up, but when I’m speaking in public about the suffrage campaign I try to subtly represent different colours from the movement through what I’m wearing, to be relaxed and to move with confidence in order to best represent these fantastic campaigners of the past.
by Lily Rimmer
Click here to read the first week of our Suffragette style series.
Click here to read the second week of our Suffragette style series.
Click here to read the third week of our Suffragette style series.
Literature of the Women’s Suffrage Campaign in England, Carolyn Christensen Nelson, Broadview Press, 25 Jun 2004.
‘The Suffrage Response’ in Theatre and Fashion – Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes, Joel H.Kaplam and Sheila Stowell.
All copyright for images used are reserved to:
http://chertseymuseum.org/suffragettes
http://chertseymuseum.org/costume-exhibition
http://www.naomipaxton.co.uk
https://womanandhersphere.com
https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london