If you’ve watched many period dramas, you’ve probably seen a mantua. It was worn over a pair of stays (corset) and an often contrasting petticoat. The draping fabric created a front-opening gown.
Attributed to Pieter Cornelisz van Rijck, Kitchen interior with the parable of the rich man and the poor Lazarus, c. 1620-20.
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
While men wrote about women “deforming” their bodies in corsets, there is very little writing from women themselves about what the experience was like.
Rachel Boddy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Billie Eilish received criticism for wearing an ‘oppressive’ corset on the cover of Vogue. But for centuries, the clothing gave women support in work, and in play.
Shop workers wearing blouses in the Liverpool store at Marks and Spencer Ltd, 1909.
M&S Company Archive.
In the 1910, the ready-made blouse market was booming and Leicester’s knit giants tried their hand at manufacturing easy to launder, practical blouses.
Products like backpacks, beer and Q-tips are marketed in a gender-specific way.
(Jason Blackeye/Unsplash)
The sale of women’s backpacks is up by more than 20 per cent in the past year: but why can’t we just call it a backpack? Why does it have to be a ‘lady backpack?’
Leggings on women challenge all kinds of conventions about how they take up space with their strong and active bodies.
Shutterstock
A feminist philosopher and fitness writer challenges a mother who recently asked Notre Dame University to ban leggings on campus. Leggings allow women to move like superheroes, she says.