Asia Sexiest Girls 052

Girl athletes and working women

In the 19th century, poor women were known to wear corsets "boned" with rope, rather than steel or bone, to facilitate work in the field.

Approx. second half of 1880's poster showing Annie Oakley wearing short-skirted attire

A 1897 ad, showing a relatively early example of an ordinary non-sea-bathing woman in public view in unskirted garments (to ride a bicycle)

The Wigan "pit brow lasses" scandalized Victorian society by wearing trousers for their dangerous work in the coal mines. They wore skirts over their trousers, rolled up to the waist to keep them out of the way.

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Asia Sexiest Girls 051

Artistic dress movement

Main article: Artistic Dress movement

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and other artistic reformers objected to the elaborately trimmed confections of Victorian fashion with their unnatural silhouette based on a rigid corset and hoops as both ugly and dishonest. Their wives and models adopted a revival style based on romanticised medieval influences such as puffed juliette sleeves and trailing skirts. These were made in the soft colors of vegetable dyes, and were ornamented with hand embroidery in the art needlework style.

The style spread as an "anti-fashion" called Artistic dress in the 1860s in literary and artistic circles, died back in the 1870s, and reemerged as Aesthetic dress in the 1880s, where the emphasis was not so much on honesty and purity as sensuality and langour.

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki