She Wears the Pants Too

My second “The Body of Fashion” paper:

The well-known question phrase “who wears the pants in the relationship” is very telling of a shift in a historic societal expectation and demonstrates the change in women’s fashion over time. The one who “wore the pants” often referred to the head of a family and equated pants-wearing with power, rationality, and masculinity which were associated with men. Women were considered intellectually inferior and therefore unworthy of pants. There were even breeching ceremonies from the mid 16th century until the late 19th century, in which young boys who reached a more masculine and “rational”, between two and eight years old, would stop wearing gowns or dresses and start wearing breeches or trousers. Before a young boy reached such an age, both male and female infants were dressed in skirts or dresses, which was originally for the purpose of easier potty-training, and subtle accessories were used to distinguish genders ("Breeching (boys)" 2019).  However, only boys were able to be breached, and the ceremonies represented a coming-of-age celebration that young girls never experienced as they perhaps were not expected to ever be “rational.” Today, both men and women wear pants and legs are associated with femininity, but emphasizing calves was once a more masculine trend while women were expected to reveal as little of their body as possible. Once upon a time, women could even be jailed for wearing pants before wearing them was socially acceptable, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries in countries including the US, England, and France. 

Trousers are outer garments covering the body from the waist to the ankles with a separate part for each leg, while pants are underwear or knickers. Breeches are short trousers fastened just below the knee and are nowadays usually worn by equestrians or for ceremonies. Until the 20th century, Western culture restricted women from wearing pants and deemed them essential to men only.  In the 19th and 20th centuries, various US cities including Columbus, Chicago, Houston, Orlando, and two dozen others passed legislation banning women from wearing trousers. Anti-crossdressing laws passed well into the 20th century and anti-vagrancy statutes ensured that women dressed in accord with the gender norms of the time. New York's anti-vagrancy statute of 1845 was used to prosecute women for cross-dressing on the grounds that their dressing outside of gender norms constituted a "disguise," and Boston used similar anti-vagrancy laws to arrest Harriet French in 1852. French reportedly dressed as a man in order to pursue job opportunities open only to men: she claimed to the New York Daily Times that she could "get more wages" that way. Jennie Westbrook was also arrested in New York in 1882 and 1883 due to this law, with her cross-dressing excuse being that she could make $20 a week in her disguise, while as a 'saleslady' in a fashionable store the pay would be only one-third that amount ("Trousers as women's clothing" 2019).

There are several exceptions to this throughout history, however, dating back to 770 BC. For many years, the closest a woman could get to wearing pants was loose pantalettes or drawers under skirts or dresses for modesty and warmth. Most women usually wore long skirts that felt heavy, looked bulky, and limited movement. Some women embraced the concept of “rational” clothing and wanted the option to wear pants in public. The freedom to wear pants is also often associated with the women’s rights movement as it was another way for women to be more equal to men (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d.). 

While uncommon for many years, evidence indicates that both women and men may have worn pants in ancient times. Specifically, there are Greek writings by Herodotus from when Greek soldiers met Scythians in battle, where they were amazed to see Scythian women fighting on horseback and wearing pants alongside men. Herodotus refers to Scythian women wearing pants, as do numerous paintings on vases while archaeological sites have uncovered remains of battle-scarred Scythian women who appear to have ridden and fought like men (Cooper, 2014).

Vase of a Scythian woman in pants, ~770 BC

It seems, however, that the Greeks thought pants were bizarre as they derided them as “multi-colored bags” or “sacks” for legs, and mocked them as “effeminate,” probably because women wore them along with men (Bain, 2019). The Greeks never adopted trousers themselves. The Persians did, and, by the 5th and 6th centuries, despite their initial resistance, the Romans had as well. But for women in the West, they remained mostly off-limits for quite a while. 

In the 1850s, there was an American Dress Reform Movement, which sought to make the clothing of the Victorian era more comfortable since the weight and width of dresses had become incredibly inconvenient for women. In the 1840s, skirts and petticoats became more voluminous than the decade prior, and this seemingly backward step for women was frustrating and led to the movement. In 1851, early women's rights advocate Elizabeth Smith Miller introduced Amelia Bloomer to a garment initially known as the "Turkish dress", which was a look that involved a knee-length skirt worn over Turkish-style pantaloons. Turkish trousers were typically used for workout classes, gymnastics, and health sanitoriums at places such as finishing schools ("Trousers as women's clothing" 2019). Some female laborers wore this as a practical aspect of their uniforms. Amelia Bloomer came to advocate and promote the dress, including instructions for making it, in The Lily, a newspaper dedicated to the "Emancipation of Woman from Intemperance, Injustice, Prejudice, and Bigotry" (Chrisman-Campbell 2019). This inspired a craze for the dress, which came to be known as “bloomers”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone, other early advocates for women's rights, also adopted this style of dress in the 1850s, referring to it as the "freedom dress." Similarly named, Levi Strauss was among the first pants companies to release ladies’ pants in 1918 which they called “Freedom Alls” (Levi Strauss & Co 2019). Freedom-Alls were a sort of belted tunic over harem pants which were called trousers and had a drop seat.

Freedom-Alls Advertisement; Woman in Freedom-Alls, 1918

Mary Edwards Walker was another advocate of publically wearing bloomers and wore them while working at a military hospital. The movement was relatively short-lived, especially since the main issue with the large dresses was the discomfort of the skirts and petticoats. Once cage crinolines, which were hooped cages resembling round skeleton cages that expanded the volume of a silhouette under petticoats, were invented in 1857 even Bloomer herself abandoned the trousers and opted for the lighter dress style. 

For several years, pants were still not normal for women to wear. However, the designs did reappear as re-appropriated bloomers several decades later. Specifically, in the 1890s, women’s bicycling became fashionable and led to an updated, athletic version of the bloomer. In 1893, a federation of several women's societies organized the National Council of Women who wanted to improve the political and social climate of the country and to overthrow the "ignorance and injustice" of women's clothing by tackling dress form once again. They attempted to outfit prominent women reformers such as Clara Barton and Harriet Beecher Stowe, but the clothes did not gain traction paired with a women's movement (Hermanson 2017). At the turn of the century, sports including tennis, cycling, and horseback riding became more popular among women. Ida M. Rew’s “athletic suit for ladies,” patented in 1895 [Figure 4], hid trousers under a full skirt and attached them to a bodice (Ro 2018).

Ida M. Rew’s “athletic suit for ladies”, United States Patent Office Document

This style allowed women to move more easily during these athletic activities as their legs were a bit freer. Convertible cycling garments frequently involved hardware such as waited pulleys, hooks, and elaborate straps. While athletic trousers were acceptable, it was not acceptable for a woman to be caught wearing her athletic apparel outside of the sports activity. Outside of athletics, the "slack girls" of WWI operated machinery for war plants in full knickers, a variation on the bloomers, to avoid factory accidents. At the turn of the 20th century, cycling pants stirred anxiety and excitement about changing notions of acceptable femininity. In 1910, designer Paul Poiret introduced harem pants, inspired by the Middle Eastern styles and Turkish trousers, to Western fashion (Hermanson 2017). Harem pants eventually became a popular term used to describe baggy trousers caught in at the ankle, similar to bloomers ("Harem pants" 2019).

Harem pants in Puck magazine, March 1911

Paul Poiret’s eastern-influenced satin and silk gowns were a favorite choice for the elite. Women’s cycle wear became the visual shorthand for the ‘New Woman,’ who was identified by her desire for progress, independent spirit, and her athletic zeal. This idea of women’s cycling pants as a symbol of gender relations would persist, and by the early 20th century, the female bicycling outfit had become more risqué with visible legs. Eventually, athleticism and sportswear were extremely fashionable in the 1920s, and women often turned to pants or knickerbockers for these activities. 

There were two primary sets of sportswear in the 1920s: The first set was worn by golfers, tennis players and other ladylike sports which consisted of a long or tea-length skirt, long sleeve blouse, and a loose-knit vest or sweater. The second look was for the more intense outdoor activities such as hiking, riding, camping, and fishing. Instead of skirts, women wore wool knickers also called plus fours, togs, breeks or jodphurs. Such knickers were wide and baggy around the hips with a button cuff below the knee, often worn with thick stockings or knee-high argyle socks with a pair of flat oxfords. Women’s knickers were made of grey or tan serge, tweed or jeans cloth often with pressed center legs, cuffs below the knee with buttons and a button-fastening waistband. Slash pockets on both sides added more style than functionality, and in the late 1920s, corduroy velour became another fabric choice for knickers, complete with matching corduroy sports shirt. The matching set was more fashionable than practical, and women appreciated wearing the casual sporty look without needing to play a sport. One famous woman who wore knickers and pants in the 20s was Amelia Earheart, an aviatrix ("Non-Flapper 1920s Outfit Ideas", n.d.).  She mostly wore men’s clothing or women’s masculine sporty clothes such as wide-leg pants, flight suits, leather flight jacket, neck scarf, aviator hat and goggles, sweaters and occasionally dresses. She inspired a wave of fashion for women who had an adventurous spirit.

As pants were slowly becoming more acceptable for women to wear, other pant styles were becoming popular for specific occasions. For example, upper classes in the late 1920s began wearing a pants outfit called beach pajamas, which were inspired by Asian prints with wide legs and a kimono-style top or jacket. They were one of the few times women could wear pants, but they were not sleeping pajamas (Russell & VintageDancer, n.d.).  Paired with a matching jacket, the pajama ensemble made a nice swimsuit cover-up on the beach or at resorts.

The Palm Beach Post Clipping from November 4, 1923, featuring Beach Pajamas

They fell closer to the sportswear category, but the extremely wide-leg pants were one of the earliest forms of bell bottoms for women and were made of crepe-de-chine, cotton or silk. Coco Chanel is credited with introducing these pants for women who were looking for something that was not a skirt but was still a comfortable and stylish option for boating--thus, Chanel called them yachting pants. Chanel, as per usual, popularized the trend by wearing them herself during her visits to the famous Riviera resort town of Juan-les-Pins shortly after the Great War. She decided the baggy pajama-style trousers - complete with a loose-fitting shirt or a sleeveless top - could combine elegance and comfort (Parkinson, 2016). As early as 1918, she began wearing "beach pajamas". With their gender-confusing suggestion of the boudoir, they were seen as shocking, but such was Chanel's influence that they became popular among rich women by the mid-1920s. 

Overall, women today have a lot to owe to the efforts of several bold women throughout history who decided to defy gender norms and participate in dress reforms. Thanks to famous fashion designers, prominent women, and women’s rights movements, the phrase “who wears the pants in the relationship” holds much less weight--which, coincidentally, is one of the main original reasons dress reforms began in the first place.

References

Bain, Marc. “A Brief History of Women's Fight to Wear Pants.” Quartzy, Quartz, 5 June 2019, https://qz.com/quartzy/1597688/a-brief-history-of-women-in-pants/.

“Bloomerism.” NCpedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/media/bloomerism.

“Breeching (Boys).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Sept. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys).

“Cage Crinoline.” Fashion History Timeline, 17 Aug. 2018, https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/cage-crinoline/.

Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly. “When American Suffragists Tried to 'Wear the Pants'.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 June 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/06/american-suffragists-bloomers-pants-history/591484/.

Cooper, Kathleen. “Wearing the Pants: A Brief Western History of Pants.” The Toast, 7 Aug. 2014, https://the-toast.net/2014/08/07/wearing-pants-brief-history/.

“Harem Pants.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Nov. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harem_pants.

Hermanson, Tove. “Women, Pants, & Politics.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 7 Dec. 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-pants-politics_b_541555.

“Non-Flapper 1920s Outfit Ideas.” Vintage Dancer, https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/non-flapper-1920s-outfit-ideas/.

Parkinson, Justin. “When Pyjamas Ruled the Fashion World.” BBC News, BBC, 31 Jan. 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35427892.

Ro, Christine. “How Cycling Clothing Opened Doors for Women.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 15 Apr. 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/how-cycling-clothing-opened-doors-for-women/558017/.

Russell, Simone, and VintageDancer. “Did Women Wear Pants in the 1920s? Yes! Sort of...” Vintage Dancer, https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/did-women-wear-pants/.

StaffLevi Strauss & Co. “Throwback Thursday: Before Women Wore Jeans.” Levi Strauss & Co, 30 May 2019, https://www.levistrauss.com/2015/02/18/throwback-thursday-before- women-wore-jeans/#:~:targetText=Lady Levi's weren't the,-Alls, introduced in 1918.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “When Did Women Start Wearing Pants?” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/story/when-did-women-start-wearing-pants#:~:targetText=While there were some women,-century dress-reform movement.

“Trousers as Women's Clothing.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Oct. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trousers_as_women's_clothing.