"Pants, like bicycles, have long been associated with mobility. Despite confining each leg, or more accurately because they confine each leg, pants allow greater freedom of movement: freedom from worrying about exposing too much skin, freedom from updrafts, and, as my skirt slaughter shows, freedom from flowing material getting stuck where it shouldn’t.
"This isn’t trivial. Victorian-era newspapers reported (and perhaps sensationalized) female cyclists dying because of massive skirts that blew up and obscured their view, or dresses that wrapped around their pedals. A letter published in the Daily Press in 1896, for instance, commented of a cyclist’s death, “I think she failed because she could not see the pedals, as the flapping skirt hid them from her view, and she had to fumble for them. Could she have taken but a momentary glance at their position, she would have had a good chance to save her life.” Critics seized upon such tragedies to argue that women were unsuited to ride bikes. For some, it was more convenient to blame women’s audacity in mounting a bicycle than the restrictive clothing that made doing so perilous.
"As is traditional with things that allow women greater freedom, both women’s cycling and women’s cycling pants have occasioned plenty of moral panic. During the 1890s, when bicycling exploded in popularity among the middle and upper classes in the United Kingdom, journalists and others condemned female cyclists for their wantonness. Women on bicycles were pelted with objects and obscenities. These unchaperoned women, some people worried, could be pedaling away to engage in prostitution or lesbianism.
"Cycling trousers, along with women on bikes, were also a target of ridicule. English travelers reported wistfully in 1890s travel memoirs and periodicals like The Rational Dress Gazette that the French were more nonchalant about women wearing pants on bikes. (It’s possible that they went too far in the other direction, as until 2013 it was officially illegal for women to wear pants in Paris unless they were on bikes or horses.)
"...Pants became more acceptable garments for British and American women during the world wars, when women on the home front were increasingly called upon (and allowed) to do what had previously been seen as men’s work. Cycling pants, like pants for factory, agricultural, and eventually office work, had both practical and symbolic advantages. They helped to legitimize women’s presence in traditionally male spheres.
"Claire McCardell, a sportswear designer, helped make women’s cycling pants more fashionable. While less sleek than today’s designs, they were clearly much more functional than baggy bloomers or Inspector Gadget–style convertible cycle wear. McCardell’s postwar bicycling culottes were a streamlined version of the hybrid skirt/trousers of the turn of the century. The volume hinted at the shape of a skirt, but the bifurcation of the pant legs aided cycling.
"The cycling fashion transformations that followed were, like the embrace of sewing machines and patent culture in the Victorian era, partly rooted in an embrace of technology. An American chemist invented spandex in the late 1950s, following innovations with other stretch fabrics. Synthetic textiles allowed designers to move away from the weight of wool and the stickiness of silk. The spandex brand Lycra would become particularly associated with cycling getups like bib shorts, whose shoulder straps were more comfortable than the complicated systems pioneered by the Victorians.
"...In fact, plenty of people have argued that focusing on cyclist clothing and helmets can actually be a barrier to safety, as it spreads the perception that cycling is dangerous. This both reduces the safety-in-numbers effect of abundant cyclists, as in Amsterdam, and diverts responsibility for cycling-safe conditions from policy makers to individuals, as in many American cities.
"Lycra is also of limited use for women whose cultural traditions don’t align with skin-tight clothing. One Saudi cyclist, Baraah Luhaid, kept having to deal with her abaya (a robe-style dress) getting stuck in her bike chain. This inspired her to create and pursue a patent for a cycling abaya with legs. Luhaid is one of a number of designers seeking to integrate activewear with Islamic dress. And her DIY attitude is a clear link to the Victorian women with their sewing machines, creating their own cycling garments and claiming ownership of them.
"In modern-day Saudi Arabia, as in Victorian England, a new piece of clothing isn’t going to alter gender roles by itself. It only became legal for Saudi women to bike in 2013, and even then only in certain public spaces, in the presence of a male guardian. And in areas where women’s cycling isn’t regulated but is still unusual, as in Zimbabwe, gender-based harassment may be rife, even before shorts enter the picture."
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