Lame skirt: How fashion designers hobbled women at the beginning of the 20th century

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The inventor of this terrifying style was the famous French fashion designer Paul Poiret. He was called the "Picasso of fashion" and was idolized. It was this man who brought the kimono and shirt cut of women's clothing to Western fashion, which allowed ladies from decent society to go out without corsets for the first time in several hundred years. He replaced the "medieval instrument of torture" with a much more comfortable bra. However, the maestro spoke about himself like this:.

Each historical period usually gives rise to some fashionable curiosity: extra-long toes of shoes, huge collars, airship dresses or bare ankles in winter … In the 1910s, the "lame skirt" became the main subject of jokes for the stronger sex. The world was then still gaining courage, anticipating to see the forbidden jewel - female legs not hidden by kilometers of frills, and the silhouette of the dress, which was very narrowed downwards, became in this case a cunning decision: he almost did not reveal anything, but outlined much more frankly. For the sake of such a trump card, the ladies were ready to endure terrible inconveniences.

The design of the skirt was quite complex. To prevent the fabric from tearing, the bottom of the product was reinforced with a very dense insert or a hard, inelastic cord was sewn in. The narrowing at the ankles or calves allowed only short, mincing steps to be taken. It was said that Paul Poiret, a longtime lover of oriental fashion, was inspired by the gait of Japanese women in traditional clothes, but he himself told a different story, about the first woman to take off in the Wright brothers' airplane. It was the brave American Edith Berg. So that the skirt in flight, God forbid, would not swell and interfere with the pilot, she tied it with a rope under her knees, and after landing she walked around the field, causing everyone to admire.

One way or another, but the fashion for a new style spread like wildfire. The name “hobble skirt” (from English to hobble - to hobble, limp) really stuck behind the incredibly uncomfortable model. There were objective reasons for this nickname. Maybe Japanese geisha look like fragile porcelain dolls in their traditional outfits, but unpleasant incidents began to happen among portly and unaccustomed Western ladies. Women of fashion fell on the stairs, crossed the road too slowly, suffered when entering public transport cars or when boarding a car.

Situations sometimes went to extremes, since many prudent ladies, in order not to accidentally tear an expensive outfit, really tied their legs under their skirts, and in critical cases they turned out to be hostages of fashion. Accidents often happened to the "lame beauties": one "hobbled" girl stumbled on a bridge, fell into the river and drowned, another became the victim of a furious horse at the races, from which she could neither run nor dodge, and the famous actress fell off the stage right during the performance, because because of the skirt she could not keep her balance. In some states, for the safety of fashionistas, they even reduced the height of the sidewalk, but this, of course, did not solve the problem.

Interestingly, the riot of "hobbled fashion" fell on the heyday of the suffragist movement. In addition to global demands - about equal rights and freedoms - they also advocated for women to be relieved of the need to mock themselves - to wear corsets, maintain an S-shaped figure silhouette, etc. Apparently, the tied legs of the forerunners of modern feminism did not bother, and the “lame skirt” was not included in the list of “bullying” at that time.

However, men made fun of the absurd fashion. Women who look like pillars and are incapable of the simplest movements have become a popular subject of cartoons. The artists figured out for the ladies how they could catch the train or go down the stairs without any problems.

"Lame skirt" became the latest fad of the outgoing era of femininity, when the fair sex was really strong in its weakness. New times came, and the strange inconvenient fashion was forgotten as soon as the volleys of the First World War thundered. Around the same time, Paul Poiret also went out of fashion. The creator of the latest pre-war trend has failed to adapt to the emancipation, democratization and industrialization of fashion. He lived for a long time, tried to write books about fashion, and died, forgotten by everyone, in occupied Paris in 1944.

In the future, incidents like a "lame skirt" no longer arose - people forever made a choice in favor of more comfortable and practical things that help to withstand the ever-increasing pace of life. However, the modern pencil skirt and mermaid dress are believed to be direct descendants of the “tied leg fashion”.

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