The Dame bends over, whips up her crinolines; she has three pairs of knee-length bloomers, which she wears according to mood.

One pair of bloomers is made out of the Union Jack, for the sake of patriotism.

The second pait of bloomers is quartered red and black in the memory of Utopia.

The third and vastest pair of bloomers is scarlet, with a target on the seat, centred on the asshole, and this pair is wholly dedicated to obscenity.

(from Angela Carter’s In Pantoland)


It was not so long ago that wearing bloomers, those loose pants gathered near the knee, was a radical move.

Bloomers were invented by and named after Amelia Bloomer, an early American suffragette and social reformer who founded and edited the feminist publication Lily (1849–55). She interests me, not least because my name is also Amelia, my surname is Groom (not far from her's) and my middle name is Lily! My parents say they had never heard of her when they named me.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century gender roles were being drastically reformed and, insignificant as it might sound, women started to ride bikes. The bicycle gives autonomy and mobility, and thus was a threat to the patriarchy, which needed women to stay in their defined place, both figuratively and physically. The feminist and civil rights leader, Susan B. Anthony, is quoted as saying "the bicycle had done more to emancipate women then anything else in the world."

Amelia started wearing bloomers for practicality, especially for cycling. It was necessary to cast off the constricting and uncomfortable clothing styles that had covered women's bodies for centuries, but it was no easy task. Amelia, and other women who took to bloomers, were ridiculed and abused in the street.

Here she is in a controversially "short" dress.