Three years after the commotion started, Empress Eugenie retired to her boudoir and, after consultation with her couturiers, emerged in the crinoline which conformed to the contemporary ideas of beauty and taste and conceded much to comfort. Skirts extended from the waist to the ankles in a full curve, and hoops were substituted for the six padded, heavy underskirts. Tight whalebone lacings which left blue welts were done away with and legs were fetchingly incased in snowy, ruffled pantalettes, a more feminine version of Amelia's bloomers.
This style was adopted in France, and in England because it came from France. America, of course, followed. Amelia herself discarded her Bloomer costume in favour of crinolines.
But in 1866 women went back to innumerable petticoats. And ten years later women were again wearing wire, this time called a "panier."
In the Eighteen Nineties, when the taboo of sports other than archery and croquet for women was removed, bloomers were adopted for bicycling and stays were loosened for tennis. But it was only after the turn of the century that Amelia Bloomer's dream as ized and women's dress became rational, Simplicity and straight lines supplanted the curve, and women took up motoring, golf, swimming and, above all, dancing. Irene Castle became an institution and a torchbearer. The upheavals of the World War completed the emancipation,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.