Women Wearing the Trousers in WWII

 By the start of World War II, "slacks" were well established as casual and leisure wear for women in the Western world.  However, they were not considered suitable for street or work wear, and certainly not for formal wear.  Would the World War change these attitudes?  Would a combination of shortages, war work and the threat of air-raids make more practical clothing acceptable?

Changes came first to places where the war was closest:

So if you would like to know what the autumn London fashions are I'll tell you.  Smart women are wearing the slacks and sweaters and scarves they bought to wear on holiday abroad or in the country, because if they are in London they are busy working, and those sorts of clothes are quickest to put on and stay neat.  Or they are wearing the uniform to which their training has entitled them.

The Home: An Australian Quarterly, November 1939

Vogue Pattern Book, August-September 1941

However, a whole year later, bifurcated garments were still being depicted as leisure-wear in Australia:

The Trouser Trend...

Basking on the beach ... in a bare-midriff pyjama suit of striped jersey... For summer lazing—voluminous red slacks printed with huge white and yellow leaves... Designed for active sports... deep blue slacks in a heavy shantung... Entertaining at home in a Persian-inspired pyjama suit...

The Australian Women's Weekly, November 20 1940

Wakes catalogue, Winter 1942

In June 1942, the Australian Women's Weekly surveyed "business girls"  to find out how they planned to dress on clothing coupons:

Only a little more than half favour slacks for work, even if employers favoured them.

Miss Audray Stafford of Marrickville, junior clerk, would wear a slacksuit to the office if her employer allowed her.

"But as I'm not sixteen, although I've been dressing myself for nearly two years, I'd probably have to ask my mother for the coupons."

Australian Women's Weekly, 13 June 1942

Walter Field catalog, Fall 1942

Trousers were a practical way of dealing with stocking shortages, but women were still (mostly) reluctant to wear them in an office setting.  Reporting from England:

Woman continues to be a contrary creature.  She clamoured for trousers at work.  'You can wear trousers,' says Whitehall, 'you have our full permission.  Does she wear them?  Certainly not.  'They are not the thing,' she says.  Someone had the curiosity to comb through Whitehall's government departments the other day and found three girls out of many hundreds working in trousers.

At the other end of London, one of the girl bus conductors put on a pair of trousers instead of the regulation skirt because she had no more coupons to buy stockings and she lost her job.  It's a mad world.

ABC Weekly, 14th of February 1942

Wakes catalogue, Summer 1942-43

For heavy or industrial work women started wearing overalls.   

Why don't designers of overalls for women use a little common sense?  Women's overalls are designed the same as men's.  A woman's body is not designed the same as a man's, but designers of overalls apparently do not realise what vast anatomical differences there are.  For a start, women's overalls should be made with a tailpiece similar to kiddies' rompers instead of buttoning down the front.

The Australian Women's Mirror, November 23 1943

McCall Style News, April 1943

For your shift on the assembly line, for your gardening, for just plain sports—a slacks suit in three pieces.

McCall Style News, April 1943

The Australian women's weekly decided to present their own, more feminine version of clothes to be worn on the factory floor:

Briskly tailored, yet ultra-feminine coveralls made of sturdy cotton.  Note the capacious pockets and ankle straps to prevent slacks from catching in machinery.  Note too, the cheery flashes of colour.  In pre-war days you would have included these overalls and slacks in your holiday wardrobe.  Now they are ready, like the women they clothe, to do an important job of war work.

The Australian Women's Weekly, 13 March 1943

(Note: I have yet to see pictures of women actually wearing this design.  Perhaps working women had neither the time nor the materials to make "ultra-feminine coveralls"!)

Montgomery Ward, Spring-Summer 1944

Married in Overalls 

MANY wartime brides dispense with formal wedding dress, but few are quite so informal as a lass who works as a welder at one of England's biggest shipyards.  She was married during the lunch hour.  She wore blue overalls, a leather jacket, and an orchid.  The groom, a ship fitter, wore khaki overalls and a steel helmet.

The ABC Weekly (December 25, 1943)

National Bellas Hess catalog, Fall-Winter 1944

By the end of 1943 some "fashion leaders" were forecasting for postwar fashions:

It is safe to predict that many women will adopt the mode of wearing slack suits.  Before the war slacks were restricted to sport and country wear.  To-day millions of women throughout the world are wearing slacks.

The Australian Women's Weekly, December 25 1943

However, in more conservative neighbourhoods, "slacks" never quite caught on:

There are, however, still places in which slacks are taboo and where the the sporting of them brings the wearer up against quite a few problems.

Believe it or not, the first drawback, according to the slacks wearers, was that they were conspicuous.

"Surely not!" I scoffed.  "Not in this day and age."

"Just you wear a pair into town on a weekday," they said.  "On a Sunday or a holiday, anyone can wear slacks to town and no one takes notice, but to wear them into town on an ordinary shopping day is to call attention to yourself in no small way."

Matronly shoppers, they contend, turn, stare in disapproval, and make the rudest remarks.  Kindly old gentlemen sitting next to you on trams turn and give a lecture on womanly charm.  Sailors, home product and allied, seem to be attracted to slacks-wearing women, and whistle and talk as though the slacks were the bell-bottomed ones that made male and female fellows-in-uniform.

The Australian Woman's Mirror, December 12 1944

The article goes on to describe the difficulties "slacks" wearers encountered in courts, union meetings and restaurants!  With attitudes like that, it's no wonder that women had to wait nearly thirty years after the war for trousers to become normal wear.  Instead of adopting "slack suits", women's fashions became exaggeratedly feminine in the immediate postwar years.