The Mechanics Of Shoplifting

When we first heard about Silvia Bombardini’s research into shoplifting clothing made and worn by women at the turn of the 20th century, we were super hyped. We were already familiar with smuggling clothes, many of which find their homes in museum collections as unassuming garments whose secrets can only be unlocked by a keen-eyed historian. But clothes made specifically for shoplifting? This was new to us.

These deeply intriguing garments tell us a story, albeit vague, of a thieving woman and her ingenuity. The women that Silvia’s work foregrounds are often nameless and faceless, assumed by those around them to be petty criminals undeserving of much empathy, yet fascinating specimens to document in newspapers and case studies for early policing manuals. The documentation that does exist of these ladies-turned-thieves are a testament to the public’s fascination with the ingenious and anomalous contraptions these women were said to have made.

If the depiction of Denise’s enrapture by Emile Zola in his 1883 novel Au Bonheur des Dames is anything to go by – the “doorway temptations” of the early department stores in Paris, the “gloves with extended fingers and narrow palms recalling the hands of Byzantine Virgins”, or the “exhibition of silks, satins and velvets, in a supple, vibrating scale of colour” – then we can start to understand why these women came up with such ingenious ways to get what they wanted, perhaps without the means. The turn of the 20th century marked a gear change in the fetishisation of the commodity with the introduction of the department store. With little security compared to our modern shopping spaces, one can imagine that picking up the odd item and stuffing it into a cleverly made secret pocket in your skirt would be a rather easy feat. With only the young women employed in the stores to stop you (and perhaps your ‘morality’) it could have been a field day.

Each garment that Silvia has identified as a shoplifting device comes either from a photograph that reconstructs a reported theft or newspaper article. It is impossible to know if these three devices were ever truly used as we have no testament from the women to refer to, and harder to know if there were more successful means of thievery that will never be revealed. This, we thought, felt like a ripe opportunity to reconstruct our own with 3D designer Sharif Elsabagh, following historical records Silvia has gathered. These three garments – a garter, a skirt and a cloak concealing a fake arm – are all reimagined for you to enjoy. Perhaps most importantly of all, we hope you find something in this that might inspire you.

The Garter

At the turn of the 20th century, professional shoplifters in department stores were said to often wear a garter with hooks, or a “chatelaine garter”.See ‘Shoplifters “Kick”’ in Iowa County Democrat, 22 May 1891; ‘Some Pickpocket Tricks’ in The Topeka State Journal, 20 December 1895; ‘Women as Detectives’ in Western Mail, 24 June 1899.[1] Anglophone newspapers across the Atlantic report sightings of these technologies “strong enough to hold a pair of shoes if necessary”.G. W. Weippiert, ‘Female Pilferers’ in The Waterbury Evening Democrat, 24 August 1891.[2] The shoplifter’s garter with hooks appears at what might have been a time of transition in the history of the shoplifter’s clothes, when fashionable silhouettes were said to have become too tight for the traditional shoplifter’s skirt – as well as at a time when the daily use of women’s garters as a whole was being challenged by the introduction of suspenders, attached to the edge of corsets and clipped on to the top of stockings.

The Skirt

The shoplifter’s skirt is perhaps the most persistent, and certainly the most capacious, shoplifting technology that women in the late 19th century could wear. It was known in the business as the ‘kick’ or the ‘kick-skirt’.See ‘Shoplifters “Kick”’ in Iowa County Democrat, 22 May 1891; ‘Some Pickpocket Tricks’ in The Topeka State Journal, 20 December 1895; ‘Women as Detectives’ in Western Mail, 24 June 1899.[3] Many versions of the kick existed at once, and were adapted to prevailing fashions at a given time. The one depicted here is the kind in which, between a woman’s underskirt and her outerskirt, a pocket or bag at least “a foot square” was tied.‘A Shoplifter’s Skirt’ in Rugby Advertiser, 7 March 1905.[4] In the outerskirt (removed from this representation for a clearer view of the invention) there would have been a slit concealed between pleats through which the shoplifter’s hand could reach for her pocket or bag.

The Third Arm

In the early 20th century, the shoplifter’s false arm was mentioned several times in sensational newspaper reports on the latest shoplifting technologies or the most extraordinary arrests in both the UK and the US. Variously described to be made of either wood or wax, it is usually gloved or placed inside a muff, while from underneath the cape or through a slit in her coat, the shoplifter’s real hand surreptitiously steals. In 1916 “the subtle third arm” had reportedly been “used for over a century” by expert shoplifters.‘The Mechanics of Shoplifting’ in Popular Science Monthly, 89:648–49. (New York: Modern Publishing Company, 1916).[5] In New York, a professional shoplifter known in her circles as ‘Three-Handed Annie’ was said to have mastered this technique.