“Someone Needs To Bring This Back”: An Exhibition Showing How “Outdoorsy” Women Dressed In History Is Going Viral, And I’m Obsessed
If there's one thing that's true in history, it's that we're usually trying to pick up the pieces in women's stories — whether it's how women thought, or even how they dressed.
Even though women make up about 50% of the population, some historians believe women's stories account for only .5% of recorded history.
This is true for the curators of Sporting Fashion, an exhibition that aims to piece together, for the first time, the history of women's sportswear (and, inadvertently, the history of women in sports). Where men's sports exist cherished and cataloged in hall-of-fames, in typical fashion, women's sports are less so. But women climbed mountains in skirts, made swimwear out of denim scraps, and consistently had to think about how to make sports work for them, even if they weren't always included.
"One of the things is that time forgets what history does not record," Kevin Jones, the curator for the exhibition and Senior Curator at the ASU FIDM Museum, told me. "We don't know how many women were actually out having fun. But I guarantee you, with the research we did, if a man was out doing something active, a woman saw it and thought, 'Oh, I'd like to do that, too.' She figured out how to do it."
"Yeah, they were in corsets. Some men wore corsets, too. They weren't just fainting on couches," Kevin said. "I mean, that is such a myth, you know. They were out horseback riding, they were mountaineering, you know, shooting, and hunting. They were doing all these things. They had to figure out how to do it within the propriety of their time."
I caught my first glimpse of the Sporting Fashion exhibition in a viral video by TikTok user @tomboykatie. Like many others, I became absolutely obsessed with how innovative women had to be before the days leggings ruled our daily workouts.
So, in an effort to bring back to life women's stories (and showcase some absolutely killer outfits in history), I'm here today to show you some snippets of what women actually wore to play sports in history, 'cause they're all so incredible and deserve their flowers (even if it's 60–200+ years too late):
1.✨Ice skating✨, 1810s:
2.✨Archery✨, 1820s:
3.✨Mountaineering✨, aka rock-climbing, circa 1890s:
Yes, these women were rock-climbing in FULL SKIRTS:
"It was really, really important for me to have that photo of the two women in Scotland mountaineering, because they are not even in divided skirts. They are in full-on skirts. They are not, say, meandering up and over a little hill. Isn't that sweet? No, these women were literally hanging on the sides of full-on cliffs," Kevin said.
"And the thing that I love about that photo, also, is that if you notice the women, one of the women has the kind of safety rope tied around her waist. And you think, 'Okay, then it's like somebody up at the top of the cliff is holding on.' No, it goes up and over and is tied to the waist of the other woman. So if one woman falls, they both fall. I mean, it's just like, 'Oh my God,'" Kevin continued. "And then, I'm sorry, there is no man in that day and age, even now, who would be mountaineering, climbing the side of a cliff in a skirt."
Kevin added that they actually figured out which cliff they were climbing, and apparently it's ILLEGAL to climb today, because it's so dangerous. And yet these women were doing it in 1908...in SKIRTS! "I had to include that [image], because I'm like, nobody is going to believe that any woman ever wore this mountaineering if they don't see the proof," he told me.
4.Ok next up, ✨Inline Skating✨, circa 1890s:
@tomboykatie / Katie Murphy / Via tiktok.com
Yes, the skates were real! They're made of metal, wood, rubber, and leather by The Road Skate Company out of London, England (1896–98).
5.✨Croquet✨ and ✨Cricket✨, circa 1890s:
@tomboykatie / Via tiktok.com
"Every ensemble is at its height. Croquet was at its height in the 1860s, so that's why we have the croquet ensembles. Cricketing was at its height in the 1890s. Everything you're seeing is really when it was the most potent and most popular with the women of their time period," Kevin said.
6.✨Fencing✨, circa 1890s:
7.✨Cycling✨, also circa 1890s:
@tomboykatie / Katie Murphy / Via tiktok.com
Kevin told me the green and pink chrysanthemum print cycling ensemble on the left is a fan-favorite, for obvious reasons, but also since it's a whole ensemble that would've been worn together. Other ensembles, he said, like on the right, have been put together based on visual and written documentation. "But again, they are all original garments, right from their time period," he said, "So everything on a mannequin is with a rough five-year period." And just like today, Kevin said some garment types could've been worn for more than one sport (like the 1890s mountaineering divided skirt also have been worn cycling).
8.✨Bathing✨, circa 1900s:
I'm sure you have...questions. But no, it's not to swim in! It was a French personal changing tent, called a cabine d'essayage. It's extremely rare and almost didn't make the collection.
Here's the story from Kevin: "It came out of a French family collection. It is the only one known to survive. I had, you know, in a course of the research, hoped to find one. The project basically was finished, and I got a text from a dealer in Spain that said, 'Hey, there's this sale coming up in France countryside.' This was not a dress sale; this was just, like, a family sale. And it happened to be in there, and he spotted it, and so he alerted me. And so I was literally on the phone with the Auction House at 3 in the morning... I said to our partner, the American Federation of Arts in New York, 'We have to have an emergency photo shoot, because this has to go in the project.' And everybody was all excited about it. It's just the craziest thing, and it's been a very popular piece in the show."
9.✨Piloting✨, circa 1930s:
In the catalog and exhibition, Kevin sought to go beyond just featuring clothes by highlighting the women from the time period who might've been wearing them. "We're talking about clothing, you know, we're on the body, but it was worn by people. And so we wanted to, actually have to focus on women," he said.
Kevin continued, "And we thought about Amelia Earhart for piloting, but everybody knows Amelia Earhart, so we really wanted to kind of bring some women into focus that maybe people had never heard of. So we found out about Hazel Ying Lee, a Chinese American woman who lived up in the northwest and wanted to be a pilot, and this is back in the 1930s."
"So how does a Chinese American woman in the 1930s become a pilot? She figured it out. She pushed through restrictions, barriers, and opportunities. So [we needed] to blend that together," Kevin said, further stating the importance of including women who would've worn the garments, and their voices. "That's the only way that we felt that it could be legit without us just saying, 'Okay, this is what they wore.' Show a photograph. 'Oh, isn't that nice? And this is from 20 years ago.' That's it. That's easier. We wanted to really, really challenge ourselves with it."
10.Next up: ✨Rodeoing and Ranching✨ (Rodeoing: circa 1940s, Ranching: circa 1930s):
@tomboykatie / Katie Murphy / Via tiktok.com
11.✨Strolling✨, sandals circa 1930s:
Yes, activities such as "strolling," or "summer walking," or "rain walking" were once considered "sporting activities" by ladies of the past. Kevin told me, "That's why we call it sport fashion, because things they thought of as sports in their time wouldn't necessarily be thought of as sport today, such as gardening, or walking. Those were considered sporting activities."
12.✨Yachting✨ (left: circa 1880s, right: circa 1930s):
@tomboykatie / Katie Murphy / Via tiktok.com
Look at how the dress was updated within the 50-year span! She's lookin' a little looser and more comfy on the right.
13.✨Skiing✨, circa 1930s:
Or possibly on loan from a serial killer (I'm kidding).
14.✨Roller Derby✨, circa 1940s:
That rounds out all the little snippets I have! If you're wondering, why haven't I seen any of these before!?! Well, a few things:
As I mentioned before, this is the first time this is ever getting cataloged. It took curator Kevin Jones 12 years of sourcing garments and puzzle-piecing snippets of surviving women's history to make this exhibition happen. Second, as many years passed by, many items were lost or deteriorated over time. And third, since it wasn't considered very important (like a wedding dress), it wasn't saved.
I also wondered who was wearing these garments and if sports were reserved only for wealthy women, but Kevin said that women in all classes were enjoying sports — it's just their garments may not have survived as easily because they were used up.
"The 19th century, the development of the Industrial Revolution, was really the beginning which greatly increased the middle class in Europe and the United States, as there was a larger group of people that could then participate in more fun, leisurely activities," Kevin said. "Whether they're very wealthy or the peasantry, people were out doing fun, sporty activities and figuring out what to wear."
"It just happens to be extraordinarily rare because, you know, the [garments] haven't survived, especially anything for the middle or lower classes, they will use it up," Kevin said. "It's not like they can just go and acquire then, oh, another writing habit or another, whatever, piloting ensemble or something. So, again, that's why this stuff is so rare."
And if you're like — OMG, how did they wear these garments, though?! Kevin urged us not to compare, because the garments were often modern and innovative for the time, even though they might look funny or impractical today.
"They were the entrepreneurs at their time. One of the things that was really, really important for us was to never compare one of these women at any time in the timeline, 1800 to 1960 with a woman in the future," he said. "Because each of these women in the catalog, in the exhibition, they were the modern woman of their time. Just like today's women are the modern women."
As for why the exhibition stops at 1960 — well, Kevin said by 1960, women kinda figured out all the proper silhouettes by then. "By the time you get to 1960, everything that a woman is wearing today for sport, either uniform or just sportswear, has been invented, had been designed. The difference is the textile technology," he said.
"So you know, body suits and things — those all existed beforehand — but being in a shark skin fabric that can read your pulse makes it incredibly modern and cutting edge today. It's not that garment shape itself, which has already existed for a long time."
The Sporting Fashion exhibition, which just wrapped up traveling across the US, will be back at the ASU FIDM Museum in the future (date TBD). In the meantime, their next exhibition, Fashion Statements, will open on Sept. 5, 2024 in Los Angeles.
The next exhibition will feature more than 70 works dating from the 18th century to the present. "It's really the very best of fashion history, from major designers to the quirky oddities of fashion history," Kevin said.
Anyway, that's a wrap for now! Would you wear any of these looks today? Let me know down below!
