Rational dress Society - wikipedia Rational dress Society The Rational Dress Society was an organisation founded in 1881 in London. It described its purpose thus : The Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion in dress that either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any way tends to injure the health. It protests against the wearing of tightly - fitting corsets ; of high - heeled shoes ; of heavily - weighted skirts, as rendering healthy exercise almost impossible ; and of all tie down cloaks or other garments impeding on the movements of the arms. It protests against crinolines or crinolettes of any kind as ugly and deforming.... ( It ) requires all to be dressed healthily, comfortably, and beautifully, to seek what conduces to birth, comfort and beauty in our dress as a duty to ourselves and each other. In the catalogue of its inaugural exhibition, it listed the attributes of `` perfect '' dress as : 1. Freedom of Movement. 2. Absence of pressure over any part of the body. 3. Not more weight than is necessary for warmth, and both weight and warmth evenly distributed. 4. Grace and beauty combined with comfort and convenience. 5. Not departing too conspicuously from the ordinary dress of the time. Leading members of the Society were Lady Harberton ( who created the divided skirt ), Mary Eliza Haweis and Constance Wilde ( wife of Oscar Wilde ). Woman cyclists, such as members of the Lady Cyclists ' Association, were keen advocates of women 's right to dress appropriately for the activity, as part of a belief that cycling offered women an opportunity to escape overly restrictive societal norms. In 1889, a member of the Rational Dress Society, Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, staged a coup at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Newcastle upon Tyne, when she arranged an impromptu addition to the programme on the subject of rational dress. Her speech was reported by newspapers across Britain and the notion of rational dress was the biggest news from the meeting. References Jump up ^ Rockliff - Steiin, Consuelo Marie. `` Pre-Raphaelite Ideals and Artistic Dress ''. Gilded Lily Publishing. Archived from the original on 2011 - 09 - 30. CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown ( link ) Jump up ^ Levitt, Sarah. `` Pomeroy ( née Legge ), Florence Wallace, Viscountess Harberton ''. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ( online ed. ). Oxford University Press. doi : 10.1093 / ref : odnb / 45796. ( Subscription or UK public library membership required. ) Jump up ^ See The Philosophy of Dress by Oscar Wilde. Jump up ^ Julie Wosk, Women and the Machine : Representations from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age, 2003, Johns Hopkins University Press, pp98 - 99 ISBN 978 - 0801873133 Jump up ^ Stephanie Green ( 2013 ). The Public Lives of Charlotte and Marie Stopes. London : Pickering & Chatto. p. 64. ISBN 9781848932388. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rational_Dress_Society&oldid=835849340 '' Categories : 19th - century fashion Clothing controversies History of clothing ( Western fashion ) Anti-fashion Hidden categories : CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB Talk About Wikipedia Add links This page was last edited on 11 April 2018, at 04 : 22. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: when did the rational dress society begin to work
Answer: 1881; 1881; 1881