The Marie Jeanette collection is a singular range of athletic wear inspired by a singular painting in the Rijksmuseum collection: Jan Toorop’s 1900 portrait of Marie Jeanette de Lange, a giant in a particular form of women’s liberation - the liberation from restrictive clothing.

In her role as chair of the Association for the Improvement of Women’s Clothing, Marie Jeanette de Lange promoted natural, loose-fitting, hygienic clothing that could better serve the needs of the modern woman. The Association fought for clothes in which women could “walk, sit and work, would be able to dress and undress without help from strangers. Dress that would be able to hold a handkerchief, wallet and keys, which didn't sweep the floor”. The Marie Jeanette collection embraces de Lange’s activism, providing a diverse range of beautiful, comfortable, and healthy activewear to give women freedom of movement and expression.

The turn of the century was an important time for women asserting their changing role in society. As industrialization and urbanization progressed, the mid-nineteenth century saw women seeking employment in nursing, department store retail, and teaching, and 1871 marked the first woman admitted to a Dutch university. As women of all classes entered the workforce, middle and upper-class women pursued more active leisure activities, including bicycling, sport, and travel. In 1883, Dutch women began fighting for suffrage. These newly independent and active women became known as the ‘New Woman’.

It was in this climate that de Lange and her colleagues sought women’s clothing reform. In addition to seeking more freedom of movement for women leading increasingly active lifestyles, de Lange understood other growing concerns about traditional feminine dress. As women began working more, their tight corsets and long skirts posed a health risk, especially for women in poorly ventilated factories. Many accused corsets of breeding disease, as scientific research increased popular understanding of bacteria. Some clothing companies tried to monetize these trends and concerns, advertising “Bicycle Corsets” with greater range of movement. Others, like the women of the Aesthetic movement, went further, embracing a looser-fitting style later popularized by Liberty & Co. Like de Lange, Jan Toorop actively engaged with change, working in a wide range of Avant Garde styles. Toorop was an ally to the Feminist cause and understood the changes in women’s work, designing the poster for the 1898 Exhibition of Female Labor.

In keeping with de Lange’s mission, the Marie Jeanette collection is designed with the needs and desires of real women in mind: a range of athletic wear geared towards performance and comfort, visually inspired by Toorop’s portrait, in styles that can comfortably transition from the gym to the office to after-work drinks. Athleisure has become a dominant concept in the global apparel market: more and more women are seeking clothing options that are beautiful, functional, and versatile. We see this desire as a twenty-first century iteration of Marie Jeanette’s campaign: the contemporary New Woman, like her forebears, wants functionality, flexibility, comfort, beauty, and freedom in her clothes.

With an eye to trends and high performance, we chose a range of fabrics and design elements to enhance comfort and function. Fabrics like nylon/SPX are lightweight, strong, elastic, impact-resistant, and hypoallergenic - all qualities that the Association for the Improvement of Women’s Clothing would have found desirable. Fabrics feature wicking to draw off excess moisture. Sculpting waistbands with power-mesh paneling offer support and increase circulation. The designs feature pockets, as the association wished for “dress that would be able to hold a handkerchief, wallet and keys”. Many women still cite pockets as inconveniently lacking in women’s wear.

The Marie Jeanette collection features multiple design details evoking the aesthetic and ethos of the painting and the era. The clothes include a variety of printed design elements featuring the painting, and the color ranges correlate to shades found in Toorop’s vivid Pointillist masterpiece. Stylized floral motifs and distinctive curved lines throughout also reference Art Nouveau, a style Toorop practiced, and which played a role in the dress reform movement.

The Wilhelmina jumpsuit draws on kimono styles and their influence on late nineteenth century Western fashion, referencing the dominance of Japanism in Europe and its presence in much of Toorop’s work. The jumpsuit is paired with the 1919 sports bra, whose high-neck lace detailing relates to both a current fashion for high neck bras and to the early twentieth century fashion for a layered, high-neckline dress.

The Bicycle Corset bodysuit uses corset-inspired lines and a sweetheart neckline for a contemporary update. Unlike the corsets Marie Jeanette protested, the bodysuit allows for a great range of movement and comfort: ideal for a ballet-barre workout class or dancing all night.

The Romantic Seamless tank paired with the Marie sport bra and the Pointillist skirt draw on the types of dress de Lange and her colleagues promoted: looser, more comfortable draped silhouettes. The Association noted that looser-fitting clothing need not be unflattering, citing the relaxed Aesthetic dresses by Liberty & Co. The Marie bra features a trend-conscious front zip and corset-inspired lace-up back. The front-zip responds to the Association’s desire “to dress and undress without help”, as women (particularly those with arm injuries or disabilities) may seek alternatives to back-fastening bras.

The Jeanette anorak and the Eliza sweatshirt dress both take the loose fit a step further, giving an athletic interpretation of the Aesthetic woman’s taste for dramatic, billowing sleeves. The Jeanette also features a version of the Aesthetic gauzy, romantic train. The Eliza sweatshirt dress has a versatile look with a rib hem and a two-way zipper.

The Marie Jeanette Collection draws inspiration from the Rijksmuseum portrait through direct visual links and through a nuanced representation of the ideology of the artwork and sitter. The collection seeks to provide not only a visual interpretation of the ideals of the Association, but to create clothing that provide practical, wearable, beautiful answers to the problems Marie Jeanette worked to fix.