A century ago, fashion on campus was much more formal

A midriff showing is hardly street fashion news in 2002. But if you were a well-dressed woman of the Class of 2006, hat and gloves were essential cover-ups.

By Susan Williams

Kate Rowold

Male students in 1902 wore trousers, shirts, ties and jackets to class. Female students? Layers, my dear, many, many layers.

As fashion keeps the pace or even pushes social mores, it’s hard to look back with much more than amusement at the new bathing suit called the bikini and the 1960 song about a girl who was afraid to go out on the beach in her “itsy bitsy, teenie weenie, yellow polka dot” version. But that’s only because today’s street fashions often reveal more midriff than those “shocking” bathing suits did.

Now, go back 100 years to 1902. A lady’s two-piece bathing suit probably meant a puffy-sleeved, knee-length, wool dress worn over bloomers. As for general street dress, well, that’s something else, too, said Kate Rowold, a professor in the IU Bloomington Department of Apparel Merchandising and Interior Design and curator of the Sage Historic Costume Collection.

“In 1902, fashions on the college campus, as well as life in general, were more formal,” she said. “IU students, male and female, dressed in a manner that would not be worn today.”

Indeed, Rowold said that male students in 1902 went to class looking more like today’s student headed toward a job interview—trousers, shirts, ties and jackets. Women, too, wore more fancy or formal clothes.

”But the element of women’s dress that is so very different from today’s fashion is the number of layers of clothing women wore and the amount of constriction in the clothing,” Rowold said. “Typically, a woman would wear a camisole, then a corset, then a corset cover, in addition to a pair of drawers and at least one petticoat.

“The primary fashion layer for women in 1902 consisted of an ankle or floor-length skirt fitted in the waist and smooth over the hips, flaring to the hem; a blouse referred to as a ‘waist,’ and styled much like a man’s shirt; a fitted, tailored jacket; knitted cotton or wool stockings; and a pair of tightly fitted, buttoned boots. A well-dressed woman also wore a hat and gloves.

“Compare that ensemble to today’s boxer shorts and a tank top, and you have a very different picture.”