ABSTRACT
Costume expresses and embodies social changes. Today’s feminist and gender equality movements began in the 19th century and found an echo in the fashion proposals of the time. Women’s aspiration to comfortable and functional clothing, like that of men, was materialized in new garments. In other cases, the dressmakers and artists of the time transformed the prevailing silhouette, freeing women from the costume that oppressed them physically, psychologically and socially. Some of the proposals were ahead of their time and were adopted only by a minority of women. In other cases, liberating costumes were reserved for the interior of houses and gardens. Avant-garde garments created a debate and a farreaching meditation on the artificiality and lack of functionality of the conventional female costume of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
