With her highly publicized preference for wearing trousers on and off set she helped solidify trousers as part of everyday women’s wardrobes. By the forties, silver screen powerhouse Katherine Hepburn had joined the fray. In 1939 Vogue published its first spread featuring women in trousers. Dietrich’s public championing of the pant suit in both her professional and personal life coincided with designer Marcel Rochas creating the first ready-to-wear women’s pant suits. With her films Morocco (1930), Blonde Venus (1932), and Seven Sinners (1940) she effectively turned international perceptions and women’s wear in general on their heads by wearing her iconic tuxedos and white double-breasted suits into infamy. Although her clothing choice was accidental, she embraced the unconventional attire, posing for a number of photos in her eyebrow-raising outfit.Īnd then there was Marlene Dietrich. She had been out riding and didn’t have time to change before hosting the annual White House Easter egg roll. In 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt became the first First Lady to wear trousers at an official function. Until that time (and even afterwards in many places), a women wearing pants was considered cross-dressing and was often criminalized. Women’s sartorial liberation continued in the jazz age as women widely began wearing trousers for leisure activities, particularly tennis, equestrian and cycling. Unlike its predecessors, the Chanel suit retained a sense of glamour and femininity. Possibly the most well-known designer to make women’s suits, Chanel gained popularity during the first World War by eschewing corsets for tailoring and is widely credited with making the first truly female suit in the modern sense. The Suffragette Suit was a hallmark of progressive woman and inspired icon and fashion grande dame Coco Chanel. This predecessor to the modern skirt suit was a sharp counterpoint to the popular “hobble skirt,” the mainstream fashion of the time that was so narrow at the ankles the wearer ‘hobbled’ around. Rallies, marches and civil disobedience required more than just shaking off dated 1800s ideals – they required less restrictive clothing. Bernhardt was the original champion for what has become the sartorial calling card of modern women.īy 1910 the suffragette movement was in full swing and with it came women who were bolder and more active. At the time, a woman sporting a man’s suit was scandalous, but this controversy didn’t keep her from further challenging gender roles – she played the lead in Hamlet in 1899. The first notable appearance of a woman making a man’s suit her own was in 1870 when actress Sarah Bernhardt began wearing her “boy’s clothes” in public. Although women’s suits may not date back to the 1600s the way men’s do, they nevertheless have a colorful, boundary-pushing history.
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