Pantsuit Power Dressing

From suffragists to Grace Jones to Hillary Clinton, the pantsuit has been a symbol bucking feminine norms. Cristen and Caroline trace the power suit's history and ask why such a seemingly simple fashion has the power to embolden and enrage.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You From how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and earlier this week, or if you're
listening to this podcast months or years after it came out,
the episode right before this one is an interview with

(00:27):
Jessica Bennett, who wrote the book Feminist Fight Club, which
is a guide to a sexist workplace, and of course
it addresses office attire because there are so many gender
politics wrapped up with our workplace dress codes. Um, there's

(00:49):
actually another episode that we recorded quite some time ago
now about uh female lawyers dress codes in particular, this
can be a challenge line for a lot of women,
especially if you have a body shape that accentuates your
breasts in your butt that it can be challenging to

(01:10):
dress quote unquote appropriately for the workplace and get taken seriously.
And way back in the day when women were first
trying to make it to a cubicle, already, pants suits
seemed like one of the only ways to do that. Yeah,
it was a way to sort of as inconspicuously as

(01:31):
possible enter the boys club that was the American office,
or really any office and it seems like this presidential
election in is really a pant suit heavy election because
you got Hillary Clinton running and Hillary is famous for

(01:51):
now and totally embraces the pants suit. Yeah, it's part
of her brand if you go on her UH store.
On her site, she even has a pant suit T shirt.
The pants sold separately, but it's just like a T
shirt that looks like one of her blazers. It's even
got a little Hillary brooch on it. When she first
got on Twitter years ago, her bio included pants suit aficionado. Yeah.

(02:17):
Her first Instagram photo was from July four and it
was her trying to pick between a red, white or
blue pant suit. And Megan Garber wrote about this over
at The Atlantic, because of course, if there's going to
be a pant suit think piece, it's that The Atlantic. Um.
But Hillary Clinton has received, as you well know if

(02:40):
you've listened to our episode about her, has received so
much scrutiny over her wardrobe ever since she first came
into the public eye and Arkansas, and essentially what the
American public has told Hillary Clinton for decades now is
that we don't like anything she wears. You know, it's

(03:04):
either trying too hard, or it's too frumpy, it's too masculine,
and it's too head bandy. I really don't understand all
of the pan to scrunchy to scrunchy scrunchy gate, although
ps I did spot some scrunches on the subway last
week in New York. Dude, everything comes back in fashion,

(03:28):
but yeah. Garba writes about how Hillary's pants suit is
basically an effort to be both defiant, she says, and conciliatory.
So I'm defiant and then I am a woman wearing
pants a pant suit. I'm power dressing. But it's also
a way of saying, hey, we don't have to talk

(03:50):
about my clothes every single time, because if I literally
wear a pant suit every time I come out, eventually
that headline is going to get a real tired. Right.
It's like someone thinking they're fresh by writing something about
Donald Trump's hair, right, Like it's it's just the same
to pay we know. So it's not only though the

(04:11):
pant and the blazer. Yes I did do the Stacy
London singular pant right there. But also Megan Garber notes
how the neckline of her blouses have also risen, particularly
since two thousand seven, when somehow it became headline news
even talked about on Meet the Press that week that

(04:32):
then Senator Hillary Clinton or something that showed hint of cleavage.
Oh my god, a woman with breaths. It's like the
time Condoleeza Rice wore those knee boots. Oh god, I
still love this knee boobulous outfit. But yeah, I mean,
come on, it's like it's like people will talk about

(04:55):
anything other than policy. I mean, we've all seen the
the graphic that is the rainbow of Hillary Clinton in
all of her different pants suits, and I love it.
And it's actually the cover image on a friend's Pride
Week Facebook invitation. Love it. But Angela Merkel also has

(05:16):
her own similar graphic I've seen, like ranging from the
whitest white to the blackest black, in every shade of
crimson or plum in between. Well, in speaking of the colors,
you had to love the symbolism too. At the Democratic
National Convention when Hillary comes out for her acceptance speech

(05:37):
wearing a white pants suit New Beginnings and also white
was the color that suffragist swore. Oh yeah, it gives
me chills just talking about it. Now, I know, well,
because the suffragists colors were green, white, and violet because
g stood forgive, dew stood for women, and violet stood

(06:00):
for vote. Oh my gosh, I love that so much
like progressive women using acronyms like come on and colors
and colors and both the gendered and status symbols wrapped
up in pants suits of course, translates off of the

(06:20):
political trail as well. This is something that Samantha Sultzer
devoted her entire thesis to. In Yes, As Sultzer showed
a whole bunch of business people um pictures of women
in eight outfits ranging from the business suit, the power
pants suit all the way to um like a knee

(06:42):
skirt with a cow necked blouse, and far and away
the fitted pants suit with blazer was viewed as the
most powerful, confident, modern, respected outfit of all um. The
second was like pants and an a in a top,
or pants and a button up blouse. It was like, Okay, yeah,

(07:03):
she's professional or whatever. Um versus the fitted above the
kneaet skirt with a sleeved cal nick shirt, which was
perceived as the least respected, least conservative, least appropriate, and
least professional, which I think is so interesting because part
of this whole discussion is like, are you too masculine?
Are you too feminine? And all this tells me is

(07:25):
that like there's no winning because yeah, you know, you
wear a pant suit to a job interview or if
you're the boss or whatever. But we have this whole
history of whoever it is a boss or a fashion
magazine telling us that something is over, that it's unacceptable,
or it's it's the lay of the land. At the

(07:45):
law of the land, You've got to look like this
this one way or another. And so I just think
it's funny that this study is like pants it with
the blazers the only way to go when you've had
women like Hillary Clinton being slammed for pants suits for ever,
and that Caroline is why I prefer the office overall,
because it just confuses people. What would Grace Jones say?

(08:11):
Oh my god, So yeah, when looking for power suits,
you know, first of all, you say pants suit, I
immediately think Hillary Clinton. I can't think of anybody else
when I hear power suit. I think the women of
the movie Working Girl. But then I think of Grace
Jones eighties phenom who just recently resurfaced in pop culture

(08:32):
because she released a memoir. Um but look for her
cover of her album Nightclubbing from the eighties, like she's
a bad ask and that is a power suit if
I've ever seen one. No one slays ablaze quite like
Grace Jones. That's a good way to put it. But okay,

(08:52):
so do we even have time? I mean, like, you know,
we talked about the eighties working girl Grace Jones. Do
we even have time to go back and over all
of fashion history to talk about the origin of suits?
We better make the time. We will make the time
because that's what this whole episode is dedicated to. Basically,
So where did suits even come from? Though? Well from

(09:13):
sumptuary laws kind of. So in six sixties, six old
King Charles the Second in England passes these sumptuary laws,
which are essentially regulating the types of food and clothing,
even furniture that people of various classes are allowed um
or required to wear or consume. So Charles old Old

(09:37):
Chuck the Second demands that dudes wear waistcoats, trousers and
ties like the French because I guess what, at the time,
like everyone's like, oh, well, you know, do as the
French do this, they seem cool. It's like dressing, you know,
in high school, like the popular kids. Something you can

(09:57):
try to you just yeah. To summed up centuries of
European history, I think I can hear the letters coming in,
but yeah, um, King Charles's fashion outlook basically evolved into
men's modern suits, which of course then evolved into women's
suits eventually. And art historian and Hollander, who wrote the

(10:22):
book Sex in Suits, talks a lot about how women's
fashion has followed men's from the big the fruit, through
all the makeup and curlers and heels and the visible
effort to look made up, to the modern, streamlined suited appearance.
And I've I've got to say, like, I don't know

(10:44):
how much of the Sex and Suits book you went through, Kristen.
I had to stop because it is written and I
really don't mean this to be insulting. And Hollander, if
you're listening, I have so much appreciation for your contribution
to art history and fashion history, but this book is
the text equivalent of someone sitting in an armchair with

(11:07):
a brandy in one hand and a cigarette dangling out
of a long cigarette holder. And the other it's very
like and then it's so so a book that might
make for a better podcast sounds like maybe just its
tone and its writing style is very very interesting. Um
but yeah. She She talks in her book about how

(11:27):
male dress, in her opinion, has always been essentially more
advanced than female dressed throughout fashion history, intended to lead
the way and set the standard to make the aesthetic
propositions to which female fashion responded. Uh. She says that
men's close since the Middle Ages have been more formally interesting,

(11:49):
though less innovated, and less conservative than women's and she
says that the invention of modern suits is a good
example of this trend. Well, and another trend along with
that that I think explains why guys have been the
fashion trend setters in a lot of ways. Men were

(12:09):
wearing hair bows and carrying handbags and wearing high heels
before women were is because you see women's fashion evolve
and skirts start to give way to more fitted clothing
and bifurcated garments that would eventually give way to pants.
Um as we are able to enjoy more mobility, right exactly,

(12:35):
so in the nineteenth century, we start to move around
a little bit. Finally we finally stand up from our
fainting couch um. And the evolution though doesn't start from
the bottom like Drake, but it starts at the top.
So European women started wearing tailored jackets with long skirts

(12:58):
for outdoor activities like riding, archery, and walking. And of
course I'm sure that writing was side saddle because a stride, No,
you're do you belong on the stage, just a common
woman riding a stride. But but I mean this is
kind of the first AaTh leisure, right, because women were

(13:19):
like they had to wear more fitted, you know things.
The blazer originated as sportswear, especially for women, but you've
got trend setters adopting these outfits for everyday where so
taking those bifurcated garments, taking those more fitted blazers and
tops with their button up blouses in their little lady ties.

(13:40):
And by nineteen o five this was the common outfit
for women. And one person who embodies this whole aesthetic
is a mid century French novelist named George Sand who
was born I'm on Tine Lucille Aurora Dupine. Yeah, and

(14:01):
and George Sand you know, she not only smoked in
public and renamed herself George. Well yeah, um, but she
left her husband, she took many a lover. But all
of this was fine. But she wore pants. That was
part of her whole persona. It's like that was almost
too much for people. The lovers. Well, all right, she's

(14:24):
French pants, come off anyway, but you put a suit
on there, and that's just that's crazy talk. Well, women
risked getting arrested if they wore pants in public up
until World War Two. Well, they risked offending people, that's
for sure. And this is another thing that Hollander writes about.

(14:44):
She says that this was a time, keep in mind
when sexual separateness was very intense, and by virtue of
the fact that sand wore these suits, she became an
erotic icon. Not just because you put on some pants
and a blazer, but because wearing these fitted, tailored clothes,

(15:06):
it wasn't covering up her curves, it wasn't disguising her
in some baggy suit. Hollanda writes that she looked even
more feminine in her tailored jacket and trousers. She looked
more sexy. Notably, Hollanda rights she did not cut her
hair or disguise her full figure. It was not drag
with the aim of illusion. She showed herself to be

(15:29):
interested in a female erotic life. She was a woman
about town, someone who wanted to get up and move
and leave the house and take lovers and smoke cigarettes. Um.
And here she was embracing this modern sexuality that was
normally reserved for men. Well. And the smoking cigarettes is

(15:50):
definitely part of that too, because um, that was something
that was very deviant for women to do. Um. And
that's why you know, flappers and the new woman of
the nineteen twenties and thirties was somewhat liberated by smoking,
and especially smoking in public. We even talked about how

(16:12):
much is a freedom torch as a freedom And we've
also talked about how there were classes you could take,
like if today imagine if you could take a webinar
to show you how to smoke a cigarette correctly in public.
There were classes women would take for that. I mean,
whatever gets people to spend more money. But you know,
we talk about sexual fluidity today, we talk about gender

(16:34):
norms and dynamics today, but this was a thing in
the back of people's minds in the nineteenth century. Even
if they didn't have the language for it. Hollander writes
that quote sartorial borrowings from the other sex displayed an
awareness that sexuality is fluid, unaccountable, and even uncomfortable, not fixed,

(16:55):
simple and easy. And that's a dangerous concept in a
time when you totally had separate spheres that men and
women were expected to adhere to. And it's still dangerous
in many places still today. Now, of course, this kind
of cross dressing was common on stage for I mean,
since Shakespearean times. Um. But if we look at the

(17:18):
eighteen seventies, also in Paris, you have actress Sarah Bernhardt
who would gender bend on stage as Hamlet. In eighteen
she wore a custom made trouser suit that she called
her boy's clothes just so cute. That does sound really
cute and adorable. Um. And you know we mentioned how

(17:39):
that early athletisure became the trend of the day by
nineteen o five. Well, so let's look at this whole
suit explosion of the twentieth century. Uh. In nineteen ten,
the American Ladies Taylor's Association created what is known as
the Suffragettes suit. Did it look like Hillary Clinton's white
pants suit of the d and see um and along

(18:02):
with a blouse and jacket, it had an ankle length
divided skirt bifurcated garment that allowed the wear to take
long feminist strides. Yes, you take up that space on
the sidewalk. A few years later, we have Coco Chanel
of course, designing her first suit. But it's not a

(18:23):
pant suit. It's a fur trimmed jacket with a matching
long skirt. She wouldn't introduce her signature suit, which is
the knee link skirt and mold jacket, until the early
nineteen twenties. Yeah, what's funny about Chanel? So we talked
about her a lot in our color as Am episode
and our Tanning episode. Um, because she accidentally made tanning

(18:47):
popular or helped popularize it. She also accidentally made pants
in general fashionable, even though she's making skirt suits. Um.
She was at the beach and for modesty sake, rather
than changing into a bathing costume, she donned some pants. Uh,
and everybody was like, that's great, I love it. I

(19:09):
love what you're doing. Baby, I want to do it too.
But later she was quoted as saying she was actually
sad to see so many women at dinners wearing pants. Oh,
come on, cocoa, I know she's not. She's not quite
as progressive as we all would like to imagine. Not
buy any stretch. But then in N one you have

(19:32):
designer Marcel Roschas introducing the first wide shouldered suits with pants.
These were gray woold trousers for women. Um, and he
said that his inspiration was Balinese dancers costumes. So do
we have a little cultural appropriation happening? I think we do,

(19:53):
and I mean that echoes Paul French designer Paul Pourrat,
who's sort of credited with freeing women from their corsets
with his tunic style outfits over Harem pants. So you've
got a lot of well, in this case, I guess,
to male French designers appropriating silhouettes and designs from the East. Well,

(20:16):
and art historians can let us know whether this um
is probably a product of orientalism happening at the time,
an exoticism that you see in art and interior design
and also in things apparently like old school power suits.
I know, I know, And so following the trend. In

(20:38):
nineteen thirty nine, Italian designer Elsa Scaparelli designs a wool
pant suit with a brown wool jacket that had four
large buttons down the front and a pair of single
plate cuffed slacks. Sounds very basic, but this stuff was
pretty cutting edge, pretty dangerous, and as you can imagine,
not everyone was very excited. Uh. That same year and night,

(21:00):
teen thirty nine, in the Vogue, fashion editor Elizabeth Penrose
spoke out against women who would wear pants outside the workplace,
whether it was to your restaurant or even at home.
God forbids you wear comfortable pants at home, saying that
those women who quote pad around in hairy sweaters and

(21:20):
flannel bags on duty and off are letting themselves go
and other people down slackers in slacks. Damn Vogue Liz
so judging what is Liz relax in? You know, just
just imagine her alone in her house, like looking around
to see if everyone's gone, no one can see her,

(21:42):
and she picks up a pair of stretchy pants, puts
them on the delight that would wash over her. She
just has a bundling sack that she puts on. So,
of course we have to talk about the silver screen
and Marlina Dietrich bea us. She really helped popularize suits

(22:05):
for everyday women, because this is when we start to
see the rise of celebrity and tabloid culture and the
very real relationship today between celebrity fashions and what regular
James are wearing. So in the nineteen thirties, old Marlena Who,
by the way, if you listen to our episode on

(22:28):
the fetishizing of East Asian women, Marlene Dietrich was buds
with the super cool anime Wong, google her if you're
not familiar with who she is. So Dietrich who was
just a progressive gall in general. She sports the tucks
and a top hat, looks lawless in it in both

(22:49):
the Film's Morocco and Blonde Venus. And she was also
a pioneer of pant suits as streetwear, because why not,
You're already a badasst trailblazer I mean, and hello, Katherine Hepburn,
I mean, On screen and off, she was all about
the pants. Uh. In nineteen forty two the film Woman
of the Year, she donned a fabulous pants suit to

(23:12):
play a powerful uh and kind of single minded lady journalist,
and in nineteen forty nine, it's funny. Picture Goer magazine,
UH called her style kind of a smooth publicity move.
They said that that slack suit people weren't calling them
pants suits yet because I think pants still referred to underwear. Um.
The slack suit paid for itself several times over. For

(23:35):
Katherine Hepburn got special mentioned in hundreds of different publications.
If she'd want to dress, her name would merely have
been listed among the fifty five other top stars. So like, yeah,
she's great, she's challenged. She would have been talked about
no matter what. But those pants. So that was the
nineteen forty nine equivalent of Lady Gaga's meat dress, Like

(23:58):
she might have well just been wearing meat. Um. But
speaking of Katherine Hepburn's love of pants and how it's
central they really were to her life, they were not
a publicity stunt. Um. There is a great line in
her autobiography where she's talking about working with Dorothy Arsner,

(24:18):
who was the only female director in Hollywood for pretty
much all of the nineteen thirties, and she was a
total boss babe of pants and also just a total
boss babe in general. And really the only mentioned Hepburn
makes of her uh is that she met Arsner, who

(24:40):
of course was wearing pants, and she was like, yeah,
she wore pants. We got along well. And then that
kind of just summed it up, you know, Yeah, because
pants meant something different back then. They signified that, Hey,
you and I are both going against the mainstream. It's
like spotting an other lady on a crowded subway wearing

(25:03):
a futurest female sweatshirt. That's exactly what it's like. Yeah,
and and you know, if we're still talking about cinema
um in the late fifties and early sixties, you don't
necessarily see as many pants suits making waves, but you
do see plenty of women in power suits on screen,
although they were definitely more skirt suits. Costume designer Edith Head,

(25:27):
who's massively famous and fashion history, created a whole slew
of sophisticated suits for Kim Novak in Vertigo and Tippy
Hedrin and Birds. Um the suits you created for Tippy
Hedrid and Birds it was the same suit, but like
six different versions, and each version had more damage from
the birds over the course of the movie. Well, in

(25:49):
that scene of watching her in that form fitting like
pencil skirt suit, having to run from the birds. Spoiler alert. Um,
I mean it heightens attention so much because you know
her mobility is limited. She could have used to buy
forcated garment. She really could have. Yeah, I mean that

(26:10):
was a power suit, but it needed to be a
little more powerful to allow her to run. Um And
we're going to get into the swinging sixties and power
suits of second wave feminism when we come right back
from a quick break. So as we talk about in

(26:37):
detail in our podcast all about the long March toward
women wearing pants, world War One and two were really
the tipping points. World War One initially got us wearing pants,
when like has happened later on with World War Two,
women stepped into filling when the guys went off to war.

(27:00):
But of course once it ended, you take the pants
off and put the skirt back on. But then once
this happens all over again in World War Two, it
really starts to stick. Probably thanks to celebral models like
Katherine Hepburn. Yeah, it's kind of a perfect storm of
pop culture and just real life. Um. So in the

(27:20):
nineteen forties around World War Two, you've got thirty seven
percent of American women now in the workforce, many, many
of those women filling those masculine industrial roles, so they
had to wear pants, I mean for safety and efficiency,
and those pants often belong to their husbands who had
gone off to wars. They would you know, nip and
tuck the pants at the waist or whatever. Um. But

(27:40):
at the same time, separate from this industrial take on
fashion and having to go into the workplace in war
pants for safety, you also have a whole other group
of women who are power dressing at the same time,
and these are the Pachucas. So in the nineteen thirties
and warties um as many people might not be aware of,

(28:04):
there were anywhere from half a million to two million
people of Mexican descent who were forcibly deported from the US.
So anti Chicano, anti Mexican sentiment is raging at the time,
and you're seeing a lot of violence directed toward them,

(28:25):
particularly in California where you have higher populations they are.
So within this this leads to what are called the
zoot suit riots um because zoot suits, those big, kind
of exaggerated suits, were worn by a lot of the
guys in these communities, a lot of Chicano guys, a

(28:46):
lot of Mexican dudes, and the zoot suits started to
symbolize like their deviants. Ah, these they're just like troublemakers.
We don't want them around. And the Pachucas were the
women that we never hear about. There were the women
who hung out with their zoot suit guy friends, also

(29:08):
wearing transgressive clothes, particularly pants. Yeah. So I love this
element of Chicana history that I had not been aware
of before. Um. But these women, they would frequently be
wearing those like superstructured, big shouldered jackets as well that buttoned. Um.

(29:30):
Sometimes they would wear them over huge flowing pants. Sometimes
they'd wear them over skirts. But they totally freaked people
out just as much because they were defying gender roles
and American patriotic conformity around World War two. Um. And
so white Americans just like didn't know. I didn't know
what to think about this group of people. Oh, but

(29:51):
they slut shamed them. Oh my gosh, they slut shamed them. Um.
And there was also a piece recently over at broad
oddly linking uh modern day the modern day Chola subculture
to the pachucas. Um because the pachuca Is also had
sort of a rockabilly look. Yeah. Well, I mean if

(30:13):
you google, like literally, when you google pachuca is the
first thing that comes up is not some fascinating history
of this subculture. It's like Pachuca wear dot com. You know,
like you can buy the same thing with like you know,
mod cloth has a lot of those like forties and
fifties style dresses. It's the same kind of thing that
that it fits in with the rockabilly culture that's still
alive and well very easily. Yeah. So I mean, and

(30:36):
this is one way in which like fashion is really important.
It does matter because, especially for women and for you know,
gender nonconforming people, clothing and in this case pants are
a form of protest and immediately movement, not protest at all,
going to formal dinners unless you enjoy class privileges. Yeah,

(31:02):
very good point. Um. Yeah, because if you're if you're
wearing a certain outfit that someone deems inappropriate, and you're
a person of color or someone of a lower class,
you make it thrown out. But if you're a white lady,
I mean we see this with corn rows, afros, braids,
hair color, piercings, tattoos, the whole thing. Like if you

(31:26):
are a white lady, you tend to be called like
edgy cool at the forefront of fashion, but if you're
a person of color, you're somehow trashy and inappropriate. And
especially at this point to getting into the nineteen sixties,
when pants were still kind of daring for the everyday
woman to wear, even if you were white, you still

(31:47):
needed to be rich in order to really pull it off. Yeah,
So in nineteen sixty four, here comes another French designer,
Andre Kurage, introducing slim, minimalist pants suits for women for
both day and evening, where until then women had basically
worn pants for just informal things unless you're marleing a

(32:10):
d trick and you're wearing a tax in a top hat.
You know. Now, isn't it interesting how we have up
until this point, really, aside from Cocoa Chanel, mostly men
as both the gatekeepers of our fashion but also to
the slut shamers of our fashion. That's how that works, Yeah,
that's how that works. We we want to see you

(32:31):
looking a certain way because that's how you're most attractive.
But when you look a certain way and you're attractive,
then you're going to be sled shamed. Yeah, I know,
it's a it's a catch twenty two snake eating itself
type of situation. Um. Two years later, in nineteen sixty six,
Eve say Laurent debuted his infamous The Smoking Suit, which

(32:54):
is considered the first taxedo specifically made for women, and
it consisted of you know, tux parts, a dinner jacket,
trousers with a satin striped down the side, a white shirt,
black bet tie, and a commer bun. Because you've got
to you've got to complete that look. And Marjorie Joal,
who is a women's study professor at Roosevelt University, told

(33:16):
Vice that this was quote just top to bottom six. Yeah.
And so therefore, in nineteen six nine, you have New
York City socialite Nan Kimpner getting turned away from this
fancy restaurant because she was wearing smooking uh. And this

(33:38):
is a killer move. This is also coming from that
Vice article. Um. They write that after being denied service, Kimpner,
rather than putting up with being turned away because nobody
turns away Nan Kimpner, she just took her pants off,
walked back in the restaurant, wearing her jacket as a
mini dress. And she was let in because is that's

(34:00):
for a white, rich socialite New York City. That is
deemed okay, that's deemed appropriate. And the manager responded to
this whole hubbub by saying pants do not belong in
a restaurant any more than swimming suits. We will continue
our policy, boss, move nan. I mean, I don't know,

(34:21):
if someone kicked you out of a restaurant for wearing pants,
my first thought would not to be to take them off.
I mean I would think it's spitefully. I'd be like,
you know what, I'm just gonna go home one of
my stretchy pants. Call you ber it's it's been a day.
That's been a day. But we also have a shout out.
In nineteen sixty nine, conservative Illinois Representative Charlotte te Reid

(34:43):
who became the first woman to wear pants on the
floor of the U. S House of Representatives, and boy
did she get a lot of attention, specifically from the boys.
The Washington Post reported on this, of course, um and
noted how male members of Congress US flocked to catch
a glimpse of these revolutionary pants, which are really more

(35:05):
kind of like bill bottomed and thankfully, though uh, none
of the politicians that the Post interviewed seemed too scandalized
by this, but Representative Read really played off the whole thing.
She I don't think I think she's gonna flustered that
it became news because the only reason she wore them

(35:26):
was since it was the final day of the congressional
session before Christmas break, so kind of like how at
least at my high school, everyone would wear pajamas on
the last day of the finals. So she was like,
this is no big deal. I'm really not trying to
make waves here. And of course you never wore this
pants suit again, because speaking to The Washington Post, Read said,

(35:49):
I'm really quite serious about my service in Congress, and
I wouldn't want to do anything that seemed facetious. I
were following you, but then neither would I want to
do anything to take away from the femininity of the
women in the house, even though I think pants are
feminine looking. Come on, Charlotte, huh. It was like, it's funny.

(36:16):
It's like the accidental trailblazer being like, whoa, no, no, no, no,
I was just I was just dressed down. I'm still
I'm still a woman. Every Yeah, everybody was confused, like,
oh god, where did your gender go? Well? And also,
I mean she's wearing not even a blazer over this.

(36:37):
It's like a double breasted jacket that comes down mid thigh,
so it's very conservative yeah. Um. And and again I
mean it's not like people were scandalized that she was
showing too much of her figure, um, but it was
more of a gender norm violation. How dare she indeed? Well,

(36:58):
I mean be also got to keep in mind the
context of the times, right, I mean, people who might
not have otherwise thought it was scandalous or gender bendy um,
might have been observing pop culture and social context and
what's going on at the time, which is, hello, second
wave feminism, and more and more women are sport and

(37:20):
pants because hello, they're more comfortable. They let me ride
a bicycle away from you, and things like title nine,
pasted in nineteen seventy two, gives you more more. If say,
your school does not allow you to wear pants, you
can be like no, no, no, no, no, you gotta
let me wear some pants. Yeah, title nine, Who do

(37:41):
It's about more than sports, It's about pants. It's about pants. Um.
And you start in the seventies seeing the office pants
suit as we think of it now, worn by these
professional women who were entering these male dominated spaces. For example,
a twenties six year old woman by the name aim
of Hillary Rodham who was photographed at Nixon's nineteen impeachment

(38:05):
hearing wearing a smart pants suit and looking very capable.
If I do say something myself, and it's notable that
you said that she looked capable in that pant suit, Caroline,
because that's something that Sara Tornt, who's a professor and
author of the book Fashion Talks Undressing the Power of Style,
echoed to Vice, basically saying that like, at that time,

(38:27):
if you wanted to be taken seriously as a businesswoman
or say as an up and coming lawyer like Hillary Rodham,
then you were expected to wear a pant suit, but
you were going to be criticized for trying to emulate
men because it was so derivative of men'swear. So, I mean,
this is when we get into the whole issue that

(38:48):
we still have today in terms of how masculine is
the professional normative. Yeah, I mean it's it's we're trending
away from that, but I mean they were the first
ones in there, so they've set how the professional language sounds,
what professional looks like. But this makes me want to
tear my hair out. Her quote sums up so much

(39:09):
that we're trying to get out in this episode, which
is like, Yeah, you've got to wear it to look
professional and like you belong, but don't wear it because
you look too much like a man and you're transgressing
gender norms. They might respect you as a business person,
but not trust you as a woman. Yeah, I don't know,
but jumping onto this criticism train. In nineteen seven, you've

(39:29):
got John T. Malloy who writes in his book The
Woman's Dress for Success Book that in most offices, the
pants suit is a failure outfit. If you have to
deal with men, even as subordinates, you are putting on trouble.
If you want to be a liberated woman, burn your
polyester pants suit, not your bra. The polyester pants suit,

(39:54):
he says, we'll keep you in corporate surfdom. Well, your
brock can help you up as well as hold you up.
What in the world, Oh yeah, oh yeah, I have
seen this book. Um, I actually have a copy of
The Men's Dress for Success Book on a coffee table
at home. It is less sexist than the Woman's Dress

(40:17):
for Success book. And really, all I have to say
to John T. Milloy is terrible advice to burn a
polyosrough suit because those flames, I'm gonna just get out
of control, out of control. Yeah. So his advice for women, um,
if you want to be taken seriously, yeah, emulate men
with a tailored blue or gray woolf suit, but make

(40:37):
sure it's with a skirt that covers the knee. Do
not wear pants, you slooty slut bags. So maybe uh,
taking a cue from John T. Molloy and realizing this
catch twenty two pants suit situation that women were facing
trailblazing into the workplace, particularly in the nineteen eighties, you

(41:01):
see the rise of kind of the working girl uniform
of still the skirt suit, but you're gonna have real
broad the shoulder pads to uh, to symbolize and power. Yeah,
one can be a bookshelf funnel once I keep your snacks. Yeah.
On the other, you got like power on top, feminine

(41:23):
on the bottom. That's right, kind of like a clothing
mullet or something. Yeah, don't don't worry, my ankles are
still here. Invisible, which would have gotten you slut shamed
in the Victorian era. Come on, for sure, there's no
winning um. So between nineteen eighty and n driven by
in particular power suit purchases because keep in mind, shoulder

(41:45):
pads had started to come into vogue back in the
late seventies, back when malloy was telling us to create
a freaking forest fire with our business suits. Sales of
women's suits rose by nearly six million units, which equated
to about a six hundred million dollar game for the
fashion industry. So suddenly the fashion industry is like, oh wait,

(42:09):
we can we can convince women to wear suits and
make money because of it, because it's an untapped resource marketing,
get marketing on the phone, and I mean, you've got
more women going into the office. This, this power seat
trend just follows the women to the office because from
nineteen eighty five, the share of women in the workforce

(42:29):
screw to nearly half, and their share of management roles
rose from twenty to thirty six. So you've got more
women in the workplace, more women in charge. It's a
masculine dominated environment. You've got to look like men to
succeed apparently, which means a power suit and a pussy
bow blouse and just the right amount of teasing of

(42:50):
the hair, honestly, and maybe a kitten heel, a tasteful
kitten heel. And you also have fashion designers like our
Money that are promoting this particular silhouette. So you've got
the broad shoulder pads, those oversized lapels, um, which I
would just fill up with flair, you know, all my

(43:11):
feminist flair, uh, and women would wear sometimes yes they's
pussy bow blouses with the you know, the floppy bow
on them, but also just lady ties. Um. And all
of this creates this sharper silhouette that is very masculine,

(43:31):
sort of disguising the hour glass figure in order to
I mean, I mean it's really it's literal power dressing.
You're really trying to put on the authority that you
want to project and really camouflaging any femininity that could
potentially sap your power, shaking our heads. Um. And then

(43:52):
in nineteen and that's when we get Grace Jones is
nightclubbing that features her on the cover in this freaking
and suit cut down to hear, shoulders out to their
and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and again
like such power dressing, and it's just in the water.
Because from eighty nine you've got the TV show Dynasty,

(44:13):
which features a lot of rich white women in a
lot of big, old power suits. And they even launched
a suit line based on this show, and costumer Nolan
Miller said that the style demonstrated the imposing strength of
an American woman. Quote when she walks down the hall,
you may not know who she is, but you know

(44:35):
she's rich, and you know you better get out of
the way. What a different tune than the Pachuca's right, yeah,
oh yeah, yeah, but these are white rich women we're
talking about. Um. But the Dynasty reference also reminded me
of designing women, where I mean, a all the women

(44:55):
were typically in well there were a lot of pussy
bo blouses, um, a lot of big lapels and Julius
sugar Baker. Yeah, I mean she was always wearing some
kind of suit, a lot of times with a skirt.
But nonetheless it was that wide silhouette that yes, with
the buttons, that let you know Julia in business. Yeah,

(45:16):
oh she did. Ah. There's nothing I love more than
a Julius sugar Baker monologue. Um, but yeah, so this
this leads us up to the nineties. You've got, you know,
in the wake of Grace Jones being such a trendsetter,
you have Madonna sporting a huge shouldered, pinstriped suit over
lingerie for her Blonde Ambition tour. But then you've got

(45:38):
Vogue again coming into the picture telling us that power
dressing is over women. It's the nineties. You've been in
the workplace for a minute now, so we've got casual
fridays you can relax, and Niven Marcus stop selling suits,

(45:58):
and Donna Karen starts to make being softer corporate lady options.
That still, regardless of the fact that it is no
longer a broad shouldered suit, manages to telegraph money, money, money, money,
because you might be wearing pants, or you might be
wearing a pencil skirt, but your sweater or your top
might be cashmere, the skirt might be leather or suede.

(46:21):
You might be wearing reptile skin shoes. So even if
you're not looking like Grace Jones, you're still like, look
at how much money I have in my power dressing.
So what's happening though, in the cultural background, to all
of this is also the conservative backlash to second wave
feminism and the rise of the moral majority. So I

(46:45):
would imagine that part of that softening is an extension
of that. Oh yeah, because yeah, the political and the
personal constantly intertwined and reflecting each other. You know, Philish
laugh we didn't want women wearing power suits. Odd. No,
So someone who is white cooler than Philish Laughley was

(47:08):
is Barbara mccolsky. First of all, she knew she was
a novelty. Mccolsey was the first Democratic woman elected to
Senate in her own right, meaning that she wasn't taking
over a husband's seat if he passed away. And she
also recognized that what women wore was a big deal.
I mean, how could she not as a politician. But inte,

(47:34):
She's in d C. It is cold, a winter storm
is on its way, and she doesn't want to be
freezing and uncomfortable in a meeting she has to attend.
But women aren't allowed to wear pants in Congress. Yeah,
so she helps develop this amazing plan, this pant plot,

(47:56):
uh too, along with a fellow senator and female staff.
First she gets them all together and she's like, ladies
were wearing pants, and it's kind of the same mentality
of like the day before Christmas thing, because it's like
it's a storm, it's towards the end of the session.
But she's like, we can't. How can you expect us
to wear skirts and heels out in this mess? And
so she develops this plot, but she has to alert

(48:20):
hyper traditional Senator Robert Bird to her plan. The Senate
Parliamentarian has to check the rules to make sure it's okay,
and Bird, once he's alerted to the fact that these
women folk are gonna trapes in wearing pants, he doesn't
even dignify their plan with like a oh gosh, He

(48:43):
just nods that, like, all right, let the women in.
And so mcculsky said, the day I walked on the
Senate floor in slacks, I became the first woman ever
to do so, you would have thought that I was
walking on the moon. Well, in what a different tone
she has than representative read exactly, Yeah, she planned to

(49:09):
do this, She knew what she was doing. She was like,
this is ridiculous. This winter storm seems like it was
the last, you know, straw that broke the camel's back
of like, guys, this is insane. We should be able
to wear pants. Why does it take things like natural
disasters for for women to just be allowed to wear pants? Well,
maybe she was inspired by Dana Scully. Oh do tell

(49:33):
that's my favorite transition of this podcast ever. Well, and
n the X Files debuts and nerd girls everywhere back
then right now, I'm gritting because I agree worshiped at
the altar of Dana Scully. And of course that's not
to ignore obvious other business fashion pioneers like Murphy Brown,

(49:56):
Ali mcbeel and Samantha Jones. But come on, Scully, like,
it's amazing to go back and watch this fashion time capsule.
Scully at the beginning of the show is wearing these crazy,
these crazy suits, these huge like talking heads blazers, but
they're like plaid and they're all different colors. She's got

(50:17):
like a double breasted giant lapelle powder blue one that
she wears at one point, and over the course of
the show it evolves into the slimmer cut, more traditional
like you clearly went to Ja Crwe or Banana Republic
or something and bought a trim suit. Um, and that's
where it basically stayed. Dana Scully wearing the you know,

(50:39):
the FBI issue black suit with a white button up
shirt and the whole John T. Molloy of the Women
Dressed for Success book was none to please about all
these women on on the television wearing their suits and
having babies out of wedlock. So he releases a new

(51:02):
version of his book, uh really dragging women's pants suits.
He said, where pants only if you need them to
look like a member of the team or to perform
tasks that require them. But he did admit that the
suit quote made a resurgence when Hillary Clinton became quote
the first professional career woman to become the first lady,

(51:27):
which I'm confused by because it seems like the only
fashion press Hillary received was more in the vein of
what not to wear, Right, Yeah, That's why I was
really surprised that he was like, yeah, well, okay. Maybe
he just was looking at that as justification of why
more women we're donning suits. I'm not sure. And maybe
again he doesn't know what he's talking about because he's

(51:47):
trying to step polyester. Suit five is all over the place.
He doesn't understand science, he really doesn't, but he does
name supposedly what the five suitable suits for women are
which I just have a lot of fun because he
calls them everything. From the traditional skirted which imitates you know,

(52:07):
men's colors and styles, but you know that jacket, it
might not have lapels if you get crazy. The aggressive
feminine suit. These are not my words, these are his words.
The aggressive feminine suit, which comes in strong colors like red,
or bold patterns like I don't know, maybe hound's tooth um.
The stylish professional, so your jacket is designed to be

(52:28):
worn without a blouse, so like it's one big button
up fancy jacket instead of a blouse. The soft feminine suit,
which is a pastel, maybe it has some lacy details.
And there's the conservative feminine, which has a more conservative
cut and color. But that being said, the color is
still one that would only be found on a woman suit,

(52:51):
perhaps a dark plum or some type of mahogany, and
it just telegraphs that message of I am both powerful
and feminine in my plumb, I'm trying to categorize from
this the first suit I ever bought myself, which did
come from the reputable clothier Target, and it was a

(53:14):
skirt suit. I'm gonna say it was more of a
traditional skirted suit. It wasn't stylish professional because certainly the
jacket was not designed to be warm without a blouse. Um.
But it was dark gray with subtle pin stripes and

(53:34):
a pencil skirt and I bought it for interviewing for
internships and things like that, and I loved wearing it.
I mean, you know, target tarking against sell some good clothes,
and especially at the time in college, I was like this,
this is quite a splurge and um, and I liked it,
but certainly never thought about all of this, all of

(53:57):
the politics that were in my in my very cheap suit.
Oh yeah, no, I Um. When I graduated college, my
mother took me to J Crew and bought me two suits,
which was not cheap. One was solid black, but the
pants and the skirt one was like it had it
had that tone on tone black pin stripe pants and skirt,

(54:18):
and I just remember like evolving past the need to
wear them and was so grateful because like, yeah, I
mean you can feel powerful in a power suit for sure,
but that not a my style. Yeah, I'm more of
like if I've got a dress for work, I'm much
more of just like the slacks and whatever top typically
a card again, but I'm even past that, and I

(54:40):
basically wear a T shirt and jeans every day now.
Caroline just comes in in a sports bra and literally
nothing else. Now, I do enjoy a good blazer. If
I've got something where I need to step it up
a little bit, you know what makes me feel. It
makes me feel a little more put together. Us tie
the outfit together. But apparently I'm kind of behind the times,

(55:05):
or maybe we've circled back around to it, because in
the Wall Street Journal declared the power suit dead. Yeah,
I mean again, I just and they're like, oh again,
you don't have to wear the power suit. Um, you
can embrace your feminine elements of of you know whatever.
We don't have to be militant in our office apparel anymore.

(55:27):
Are feminine. It's feminine elements euphemism for vagina. Quitch showing
your vagina around the office. Everyone can see your feminine elements. Um,
but then, you know, just to show you how ridiculous
A lot of this conversation is around, like fashion magazines
and what's in and what's out. Just three years later,

(55:47):
in Vogue checks out the suit that Rihanna word of
the Grammys, and it's like, oh my god, the power
pants suit is back, y'all, and it's like, cut, guys,
can we just except that people are going to wear
whatever they want to wear and it doesn't have to
be in or out. But then I guess there wouldn't
be a fashion industry to make money off of. Well,

(56:08):
And I got to say, I am looking at Rihanna's
Grammy suit right now, and of course she looks flawless,
because she always does, but it's not necessarily groundbreaking. And
it's a double breasted suit with what looks like a
satin sheen lapel. It's not terribly well fitting, and it's

(56:32):
just a solid, like really dark blue black. But one
of the writers that we were reading talking about this
Rhianna suit that brought power dressing back. I guess I
have no idea what she wrote harkens back to Ann
Hollander's piece about the suit is sex. You know, the

(56:53):
suit is gender swapping. Sex swapping. It's borrowing something. Maybe
you picked it up off your lover's floor and threw
it on to go to the Grammys. It's just suggestive
of um, you know, I'm transgressing something. Well, and this
is the first time we're seeing a woman of color

(57:16):
bringing the suit potentially into vote. Yeah, and I mean
and and exactly. Speaking of women of color, it's it's
incredible to watch the fashion conversation evolve alongside more inclusive conversations,
you know, talking about queer women and particularly queer one
women of color. There was a great interview in The

(57:36):
New York Times with fashion bloggers Daniel Cooper and Sarah
Geffrard of She's a Gent and a Dapper Chick, who
both appreciate a masculine, well tailored women's wear suit. They
were like, we're here, we're queer, we love suits. We
don't need to be men. We just want to wear
what fits and feels good to us. And I mean,

(57:57):
that's what so much of this fashion conversation had has been. Yeah,
it's about transgressing norms and boundaries and being a trailblazer.
But for a lot of women, it's like, this is
what I feel like myself in and uh, Cooper and
Geffer had both talked about how wearing a well fitting suit,
especially as a queer woman of color, can be empowering,

(58:19):
um honestly, regardless of your sexual orientation. Geffer had said
that when I wear a suit, I feel like I
can do things I would not otherwise do. I'm a
very shy person, but if I'm in a suit, I
feel very confident. I feel like I can talk to whoever.
Otherwise I would walk in and feel sort of small.
And she pointed out that switching from bag ear clothes

(58:43):
to a well fitting suit ended up freeing her from
a lot of racist stereotyping that she experienced when she'd
walk into a store. She said, I used to wear
more of that urban streetwear, and I would get certain
looks that I didn't really like. I would go into
a store and someone would follow me when I started
addressing the way I do Now, I don't get that anymore.

(59:03):
So there's still a lot of class happening in our series,
understandably because suits are expensive. Um Cooper from She's a
Gent says, we're in an era when men and women
were everything. It doesn't really matter if you're gear straight,
and for us, it's really about showing young women that
they can wear whatever they want. And this reminds me

(59:24):
that in the past couple of years, I have seen
so many startups focusing on bespoke suits for women, whether
we're talking about more of just a standard woman going
to the workplace who wants a decent suit and doesn't
necessarily want to buy something from J Crew, all the
way to a lot of gender queer people, who are

(59:49):
you know, really making a space in this side of
the fashion industry. Yeah, so, I mean, who knew the
politics all of this stuff wrapped up in a suit? Answer?
Hillary Clinton? Yeah, bringing up full circle. She for sure knows.

(01:00:10):
She's got to know. I mean, every time she puts
on an outfit that she's she's telegraphing some message to someone.
People are gonna, you know, say anything that they can
about the color, the cut, whatever it is about her clothes.
Oh and at the one of the Democratic debates when

(01:00:30):
she wore that golden Mandarin Collard love top. You loved it,
but god, people wouldn't stop talking about it. Well, people
are ridiculous. People are ridiculous. But then again, I was
live tweeting about Michelle Obama's fabulous tangerine dress at the
State of the Union addressed, so perhaps I'm part of

(01:00:51):
the problem. Well, but there's a difference between I appreciate
what someone's wearing and I'm not going to listen into
what this person is saying because I can't stand but
she's wearing exactly Yeah. So now we want to stop
talking and listen to you, dear listeners. What do you
think about the politics of the pants suit? Let us

(01:01:14):
know your thoughts mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
com and for fellows listening, do you ever feel sort
of um chained to the pants suit where you would
appreciate being able to wear um softer styles, but you
feel like it's more of a requirement that you have
to put on this standard uniform of sorts. We want

(01:01:37):
to know what all we all think. Mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com. Again is our email address.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. All right, I have
a letter here from all Day in response to our

(01:01:59):
janitor's episod out, and Aldo says, thank you for covering
the topic about janitors. My mother and I are both
janitors in the Los Angeles area. She cleans the offices
while I clean the bathrooms in another building. As a child,
I would attend the union meetings and protest with my mother. Now,
as an adult working as a part time janitor, I'm
able to experience the hard work my mother encounters for

(01:02:21):
the past twenties something years. I appreciate the hard work
she's done for my family. I'd like to break the
stereotype of the uneducated janitor. I and many janitors I know,
attend school in the morning and work at night. I
received my Associates of Arts degree in sociology, and I'm
currently a junior at a four year university working on
my b a in Child and adolescent development. I also

(01:02:43):
intern for a nonprofit organization educating children in low income
neighborhoods and how to be better readers. Thank you for
shedding light on our jobs. Now, excuse me, I need
to go back and sparkle up them floors. Although I
love the letter, thank you so much, and I love
that you and your mom share this life experience and

(01:03:04):
that she brought you to union meeting. So thanks for
writing in rad mom alert. So I have a letter
here from Alex, also prompted by our Justice for Janitors episode,
and Alex writes in summer, my office team went on
a summer outing that included a picnic. My supervisor, who
brought her cooler and some supplies, asked me to help

(01:03:24):
her bring them up to her apartment when we got back,
because she lived on a narrow street in Greenwich Village
where the car wouldn't really stop and we had to
get everything up in one trip. When we got to
her apartment, she let me in and said that I
could put the stuff down anywhere. There were two Latina
women in there, both in their fifties. One was cleaning
the kitchen and the other was sitting in the living

(01:03:44):
room going through a large stack of papers. Both were
wearing total scrub out clothes tank tops, old T shirts, shorts, etcetera.
I put the containers down and the woman in the
chair said, you must be Alex. I've heard such nice
things about you. I was confused because I had no
idea who this woman was. I assumed she was a

(01:04:05):
cleaning lady, presumably because someone else was also their cleaning,
and because she was dressed like I am when I
clean my apartment. The fact that she was older and
Latina also didn't help uncloud my unconscious bias either. As
I was reaching out to shake her hand, it hit
me why my boss is cleaning. Lady had privileged knowledge

(01:04:28):
about how great I am. She was in fact not
a maid, but Supreme Court Justice Sonia Soto Mayor Caroline
is cringing. I know this like letters, just studying Sonya
Soto Mayor, who owned the apartment. She and my boss

(01:04:49):
had been friends for decades, and my boss decided she
wanted to relocate from l A to New York. Sonia
graciously let her move in with her because she'd been
in d C most of the time. Anyway, I knew
all of this already, but just didn't put five and
four together quickly enough. Maybe I assumed she wore the
black robe seven. Who knows. I still feel bad for

(01:05:10):
automatically thinking that an older Puerto Rican woman must have
been quote unquote the help. But I'm happy I was
able to catch myself before saying something stupid in front
of one of the people who would later go on
to vote for my equal right to marriage. Anyway, that's
my story about how I almost made a horrible gaff
in front of one of the most powerful women in
the country. I've been listening to Smendi since maybe two

(01:05:33):
thousand nine and ten, and I still love it. I
like to save a few episodes and then take a
long walk and listen to them. And it's like, I'm
just hanging out with my pals, and Alex says, ps.
The other woman there was also not a maid, but
another one of their friends who was just hanging out.
I'd love to have any of my friends hang out
and clean my kitchen, but that's neither here nor there.

(01:05:53):
WHOA right? Yeah, oh wow, what an amazing way to
outroot your inherent biases? Right? Have it be? It's Supreme
Court justice O God. Also, there is a terrific conversation
with uh Justice Soto Mayor on death, sex and money

(01:06:14):
that you should listen to if you haven't. Also, that's
just a fabulous podcast, so tune in. And also, folks,
if you have letters to send our way mom stuff
at how stuff works dot com is where you can
send them and for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos and
podcasts with our sources so you can learn even more

(01:06:34):
about power suits. Head over the stuff Mom Never Told
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