The purple, white and green colour scheme of the suffragettes was devised by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence in 1908. She described the symbolism of the colours as follows: “Purple as everyone knows is the royal colour. It stands for the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette, the instinct of freedom and dignity...white stands for purity in private and public life...green is the colour of hope and the emblem of spring.”

Styles of 1913 were well on their way away from Victorian and Edwardian layers and bulk. Corsets no longer constricted the waist, really, but instead they would give you a smooth line. The tailored suit was a staple of every woman's wardrobe, and the skirt-and-blouse look was one of the most popular. Dresses were looser-fitting, and hemlines rose to a few inches above the ankle.

Purple represented royalty and “the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette, the instinct of freedom and dignity;” white represented purity; and green represented hope and “the emblem of spring.” Alice Paul protested in England with the Women’s Social and Political Union in England, and brought the tactics of their leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, back to the United States. These were often all white, with suffrage sashes. These white dresses symbolized the femininity and purity of the suffrage cause.

As women broke away from traditional expectations, fashion reflected her changing place in society. Daywear lost its frills and trimmings and became more tailored, similar to menswear. At the same time, fashion began revealing more of women's bodies. The shift in silhouette revealed freer, looser styles that allowed more freedom of movement. Corsets were out and hemlines rose above the ankle for the first time.

Women suffragists tended to wear modest practical clothing. The more severe form of dress we associate with the early suffrage movement was influenced by Quakers in the movement and calculated to throw off the accusations of women only having heads for fashion. Garments for riding the bicycle and split skirts started appearing in the 1880s and became the rage by the 1890s.

Women began to embrace clothing styles that challenged Victorian designs. These styles included the abandonment of corsets, short skirts, and high hemlines, symbolizing a challenge to earlier defined traditions and an inspired desire for independence and equality.

They adopted for loyalty dignity, for purity and green for hope. Members were urged to wear these colors “as both a duty and a privilege.” Retailers like Selfridges and Liberty offered tricolor-striped ribbons for hats, belts, rosettes, and badges, alongside garments, undergarments, handbags, footwear, and even toiletries in these colors.

Dresses in the early 1910s were looser and more fluid than earlier fashions, and increasingly worn without corsets. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, women adopted the flapper dress: calf-length, lower necked, with a straight and slim silhouette, and a loose, dropped waist.

Despite their traditional approach, many suffragettes were advocates of the 'aesthetic' or 'rational' dress movement, which campaigned for looser, more comfortable clothing. Items such as the corset had long restricted movement. In the US, the movement even had its own 'suffragette suit,' created in 1910 by the American Ladies Tailors' Association and featuring a divided skirt that allowed wearers to take long strides.

After the dark fabrics, heavy skirts and bustles of the Victorian era, Edwardian fashion turned to lighter, blousier styles that aimed to liberate women from the stiff conventions of the nineteenth century. The S-curve of formal wear was still achieved with a specially shaped corset, yet, increasingly, women were shunning corsets for casual occasions, favouring looser, relaxed styles. Widely caricatured in newspapers and propaganda throughout the 1890s and 1900s, the New Woman was denounced for adopting more masculine styles of dress such as tailored jackets, and bloomers or ‘bifurcated skirts’ for cycling. As more women began to work in white-collar professions, however, tailored skirt suits became more popular daywear.

The museum video says the suffragist created a look that was subtly defiant in its unity, style, and message. It also says clothing allowed women freedom to work and do leisure activities, and that even an inch or two of hem shortening was considered radical in dress history.

The Edwardian and La Belle Epoque woman – the “New Woman” – dressed for a more active lifestyle than women of the Victorian era had. The New Woman campaigned for women’s suffrage, pursued higher education, got an office job, and participated in outdoor sports. Tailored suits became more popular for women who worked in white collar jobs. The suits, which previously had been considered too masculine for women, now allowed them to blend into the male dominated office environments.

Gradually, the curvy bell shape relaxed. Straighter, tailored suits became popular by the end of the decade. In resistance to mainstream styles, French designer Paul Poiret created corset-free dresses that draped in loose, straight lines down the body. These clothing changes reflected broader social shifts, as women increasingly participated in public life, work, and leisure activities outside the home.

The mainstream nature of these accessories, fashioning the consistent and symbolic suffragette colour scheme of green, white and violet, created a universal understanding of their goals. ... Through tone, shape, and structure, the fashion used by Suffragettes not only physically liberated women, but also revolutionarily changed social restrictions for years to come. ... Their consistent use of the tonal shades green, white, and violet acted as a political motif.

White was, however, the most used color and, on more important occasions, such as marches, participants were advised to wear full white from head to toe, which gave the cause extra visibility. It was a smart advertising option - a pin with the three colors mentioned above, strategically placed, was a sign of a sharing of values; and the lace-trimmed dresses, the high-necked blouses and the clean skirts that we associate with the Edwardian era were easily modified for this new look that screamed for freedom, nothing but freedom.

The suffragettes did use dress as a weapon in their campaign. They were encouraged to dress in such a way as to define themselves as womanly but united. The tailored look that became increasingly popular in the couple of years before the outbreak of war coincided with the increasingly physically-militant tactics of the suffragette campaign.

The tailor-made, or as the French termed it, le tailleur, epitomized the new and public spheres which women began to enter. Though waistcoats for women with distinctly masculine connotations appeared in 1846, the tailor-made of the 1880s and 1890s, coupled with a four-in-hand tie, a shirtwaist, and a boater or another masculine hat style, was a strong statement for independence. By the Edwardian period this kind of skirted suit had become a typical costume for travelling and for the ‘new’ working woman, signalling her presence in public and professional life.

After first being considered plain and bland, and going against the era’s ideals of femininity, it then started to rise in popularity amongst the middle & working classes in the 1890s, before becoming the ideal all-purpose outfit of the ‘new’ working woman towards the 1900s and 1910s, being particularly favoured by the Suffragettes. The tailor-made suit – a skirt, shirtwaist and matching jacket – was far more practical than the flounces and frills that made up the rest of the Edwardian woman’s wardrobe, allowing more movement with its skirt of suitable walking length and a jacket one could remove. It also took on elements of a gentleman’s suit from the time, letting women feel they had more of a presence in the workplace.

The post says suffrage fashions gave way to sharp, tailored suits and even pants suitable for working or marching. This is a secondary blog source and is less authoritative than museum or archive material, but it directly matches the claim about clothing becoming more practical and tailored.

Throughout the nineteenth century, jackets matched with skirts or pants were worn as a kind of manifesto for the emancipation of women, and the costume thereby acquired a nefarious reputation. London society, where feminists were influential, adopted the style, which incidentally corresponded to the sobriety admired by countries with a Protestant culture. By the 1930s, the tailored suit had definitively entered the wardrobe of Western women… It became the symbol of a degree of success for the middle class, worn by women at work as well as those who stayed at home.

The article says women broke away from traditional expectations and fashion reflected their changing place in society. It describes daywear losing frills and trimmings, becoming more tailored and similar to menswear, and says corsets were out while skirts rose above the ankle.

Ladies clothing has evolved over time, this takes us to the early 20th century, with women of the day now comfortable wearing outfits that are similar to, but not the same as the modern suit. This was a time of great experimentation as the Suffragist and Suffragette movements pushed ever closer to decisive breakthroughs in the franchise for women, and in rights for women across other spheres, and women began to wear clothes that were consciously practical and ‘masculine’ in defiance of the impractical and uncomfortable designs that were made for women. These early suits and tailored outfits were closely associated with women’s new visibility in public and political life.

Clothing became more practical… Skirts shortened and widened, allowing women to do more things men would usually do. Day time and evening dresses were shorter and fuller; military influences were evident. In the context of the independent Suffrage movement, women’s clothing in the Edwardian period thus evolved towards practicality and freedom of movement, in contrast to the earlier, more restrictive styles supported by rigid corsets.

This Wikipedia entry states that suffrage brought a marked change in women’s fashion, favoring practical and symbolic clothing such as abandonment of corsets, short skirts, and higher hemlines. It is a useful overview, but it is a tertiary source and should be weighted cautiously.