Medium: Wool

Date: c. 1888

Country: USA

Credit: Museum purchase

During the late nineteenth century, women bicyclists wore bloomers or divided skirts, which many found shocking. They were not accepted outside of the sportswear context, and The New York Times warned that divided skirts were “merely a resting-place on the road to trousers.” In Paris, bicycling costumes were a fashionable fad, but women risked arrest if caught wearing them while not in the presence of a bicycle.

Object Number: P88.63.1