Style Pattern Book, 1970

By the late 1960s the miniskirt had shrunk until the fashionable length barely skimmed the tops of women's thighs.  Not unnaturally, many women found this unflattering and embarrassing - but as the "midi-skirt" was considered old-fashioned and dowdy, what could they wear instead?  The answer was the pants suit, seen here in one of its early incarnations as a tunic with trousers.  In length and style the tunics weren't too different from the dresses of the era - and in fact could be worn as dresses on occasion.  There are stories from this period, perhaps apocryphal, of pant-suited women being refused admittance to venues such as restaurants, but managing to conform to the establishments' dress-codes by whipping off their offending trousers and wearing only the top halves of their outfits instead.