---
title: "Reform dress"
description: "Reform dress (Reformkleid) was a loose, corset-free women's dress promoted from the late 1800s by doctors, women's groups and artists."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/reform-dress
published: 2026-10-18
updated: 2026-10-18
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Reform dress

*Reform dress (Reformkleid) was a loose, corset-free women's dress promoted from the late 1800s by doctors, women's groups and artists.*

Reform dress, in German *Reformkleid*, was a loose women's dress worn without a corset. From the late nineteenth century doctors, women's groups and artists promoted it as healthier and freer than fashionable dress.

## Where did reform dress begin?

The Victoria and Albert Museum dates the loose "reform dress" to Berlin in 1886. Competitions for a new "national dress" in 1898 fed into a more successful "new reform dress" that did away with the [corset](https://teazle.art/glossary/corset.md): a Princess-type dress hanging from the shoulders, with no waistline, long full sleeves and sometimes a train. A Berlin association for improving women's clothing was founded in 1896, according to the Swiss National Museum, and the designer Anna Muthesius attacked the corset in her 1903 book *Das Eigenkleid der Frau*.

## Who designed it?

Artists joined the doctors and women's groups. The first exhibition of artistic reform dresses in Germany opened in Krefeld in August 1900, with designs by Henry van de Velde, Alfred Mohrbutter, Richard Riemerschmid and Margarete von Brauchitsch. The Leopold Museum in Vienna names van de Velde and Muthesius as the figures behind a paradigm shift in European women's clothing.

## How was it received?

Reception was mixed. Many accepted the health case, but some found the loose cut unattractive, and the style was seen as German rather than French. Britain's earlier movement is covered under [rational dress](https://teazle.art/glossary/rational-dress.md).


## Sources

1. [V&A collections record O89091 (E.2380-1930), catalogue text on reform dress](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O89091/train-conder-charles). Victoria and Albert Museum
2. [Goodbye corset, hello reform dress (Jasmin Mollet, 6 Aug 2026)](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2026/08/goodbye-corset-hello-reform-dress/). Swiss National Museum blog
3. [Tailored for Freedom: The Artistic Dress in 1900 in Fashion, Art and Society](https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/221514/tailored-for-freedom). Kunstmuseen Krefeld via e-flux
4. [Modern Fashion. Wiener Werkstätte & Paris](https://www.leopoldmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/154/modern-fashion). Leopold Museum

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/reform-dress