In 1930 Marlene Dietrich arrived in Paris to a storm. The Daily Telegraph commented that the German actress, dressed in a men's suit, had misread the European mood against "bizarre and exotic dress".
Never mind bizarre and exotic, Dietrich had been warned she could be arrested for wearing pants in the city. An edict passed by the Paris police chief in 1800 banned women from wearing men's clothing. True to form the gender-bending icon arrived at the Paris train station in trousers.
Katherine Hepburn, another movie star who challenged female stereotypes, habitually wore blue jeans. According to Vanity Fair, they were confiscated from her dressing room while she was on set filming. She would refuse to cover her knickers and bottom half until her jeans were returned.
In 1933, newspaper reports described crowds of Saturday shoppers in East London "rooted to the ground" and gasping in amazement at the sight of a middle-aged woman striding along in a smartly cut pair of brown checked trousers.
"East London is a virtuous town at the best of times, and local residents were shocked when a 'flapper' ventured from the beach into town in a pair of beach pyjamas the year before," the Sunday Times reported sanctimoniously.
Blooming revolutionary
This year commemorates the 150th anniversary since women started wearing trousers. In Asia pants worn under a tunic long formed part of traditional dress, but in the West this trend started on the coalfields of Lancashire in the mid-1800s.
"Pit brow lasses" - women who worked at the top of the mines sorting through coal hauled to the surface by men - would wear men's trousers beneath their skirts and aprons to keep warm.
An act passed in 1842 in Britain banned women from working underground in the coal mines so they dressed as men to evade detection. Mine bosses were fine with this as they could get away with paying women less.
At about the same time in the US, feminist Amelia Bloomer championed wide-legged "Turkish-style" pantaloons which soon became known as bloomers.
"As soon as it became known that I was wearing the new dress, letters came pouring in upon me by the hundreds from women all over the country making inquiries about the dress and asking for patterns - showing how ready and anxious women were to throw off the burden of long, heavy skirts," she wrote.
A New York Times editorial in October 1851 warned readers that for women's rights activists "there is an obvious tendency to encroach upon masculine manners, manifested even in trifles, which cannot be too severely rebuked or too speedily repressed".
Whether it was by wearing trousers, shortening their hemlines or revealing more flesh, women who challenged conventional notions of female dress were defamed, scorned, derided, assaulted and sometimes arrested.
The fight against women asserting their rights to liberation took many, and often bizarre, forms. In 1913 the wife of a wealthy New Jersey hotelkeeper appeared on the beach in a costume considered daring at the time. It was split from the feet to the waist and revealed purple tights underneath.
A rule banning French women dressing like men - by wearing trousers - was introduced in 1800 by the Paris police chief. It was repealed in 2013.
The 1800 rule stipulated than any Parisienne wishing to dress like a man "must present herself to Paris's main police station to obtain authorisation".
An amendment in 1892 permitted women in trousers "as long as the woman is holding the reins of a horse".
— Paris police the pants
Onlookers were indignant, with one man shouting: "Go home, you are a disgrace." Another threw sand at her. She was ducked in the sea and a gang of about 20 men assaulted her, tearing her costume to shreds. The woman was seriously injured and taken to hospital.
A conference of "physical culturists" held in London in 1921 unanimously decided that girls should not be allowed to develop muscles because less muscle meant "producing more sons".
A dramatic photograph shot in Chicago in 1922 shows women being thrown into a police van for defying a city edict outlawing "scanty" bathing suits.
Even the papacy weighed in on rapidly changing fashions. In 1924 Pope Pius XI offered a prize for designing women's wear that would avoid the then fashionable practice of "immodestly" baring one's arms.
Fame did not exempt women from dress conventions. Anna Pavlova, the legendary ballerina, was forced to cover up when she performed in Birmingham in 1925. Nobody except a child was allowed to dance bare-legged on stage, not even the divine Pavlova.
Pride and prejudice
"Anonymous woman" wrote to the Sunday Times in 1926 asking Johannesburg women to stick to wearing their skirts 7.5 inches below the knee "as they are compelled to do in France". As with all things South African, her objections inevitably took on a racist tone. "If they won't lengthen their dresses out of self-respect, then I suggest they should be compelled to pay a fine. Any girl or woman over 14 should wear longer dresses, especially in a country where there are so many natives."
In 1939 Vogue featured its first fashion spread featuring women in slacks. The magazine's primary rules regarding trousers were that wearers had to be younger than 50 and weigh less than 63kg.
Vogue suggested that the fashionable woman should wear slacks "practically the whole time" - unless she was the guest of "an Edwardian relic with reactionary views".
During World War 2 trousers became everyday wear as women were given jobs in munitions and other factories that required comfortable clothes.
Historian Ann Spokes Symonds relates the examples of the Oxford Air Raid Precautions wardens, who were offered the choice of a skirt or trousers. "Some North Oxford ladies had never worn trousers before and there was a great discussion among them as to what they would choose. Some were still undecided when they reported to the police station where they were issued with the uniform, and some even asked the sergeant what he advised. As one practice exercise involved crawling on hands and knees under a smoke screen, trousers were obviously more practical."
By the end of the war prejudice against women had not been entirely defeated, but at least it had received a kick in the pants.
