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.

"Recent Ideas on Dress Reform" (Girl's Own Paper, November 1 1890)

 As socially conscious Victorian women set out to reform the world, some began see a need to reform their own clothes as well.  The "Dress Reform" movement became particularly vigorous in the English speaking world, with middle-class reformers on both sides of the Atlantic and through the British empire trying to find ways to make Victorian fashions healthier, easier to move in and more comfortable.

Alas for all their efforts, most Victorian women stuck to their unhealthy, restrictive and uncomfortable garments, preferring discomfort to attracting ridicule!  As it happened, there was some movement towards more practical and comfortable dress in the forms of tea gowns for leisure and skirt suits for the "New" working woman.  However it took a World War and some quite drastic social changes before the ideas of the dress reformers became fashionable.

Annie Jeuness Miller was an American editor and women's dress reformer. She created her own system of dress, which the Girl's Own Paper reported on in November 1890.

 MRS. JEUNESS MILLER is as equally determined to abolish the corset as our own dress reformers, though she begins more circumspectly.  But I find she has also been obliged to give way to those who desire a bodice of some kind, and has invented a very pretty-looking model bodice with a neck-yoke, the bodice buttoning in front and lacing at the back.  The need felt for a bodice is probably owing to the lack of warmth realised when the stays are left off, and also to the want of support of some kind. 

Our illustrations show the whole of the garments which Mrs Miller suggests.  The first is the ordinary woven "combination", as we call it, which may be of silk, thread, cotton or wool, or, what is nearly as warm, of stout spun-silk.  This garment we can now obtain of every good draper in England; and for India, of gauze, silk, or wool.  The next garment in this system is called the "chemisette" and this is an improved cut of "combinations" or union dress, or the union of the drawers and chemise of old days.  This garment has a yoke at the neck, and fits the figure closely.  The next article of clothing is an improved version of the "divided skirt," which was invented by Lady Harberton, but has a better-fitting yoke, and is, in general aspects, more practical.  These three last-named garments are made in all materials—cotton, flannel, mohair or alpaca, cashmere and silk.  I find that Mrs Miller has much adopted the natural-coloured tussore as a material, and certainly nothing could prove a wiser selection, or wear better.  "It washes like a rag," as the vulgar saying is...

...The chief thing to be noticed is the admirable idea of a dress-form, that is to say, a dress foundation—one on which every dress can be made, the trimmings being made to suit the prevailing styles, so that each may have her own taste unshackled, and wear what suits her best.  This dress-form is accurately fitted, is well boned, and is made of the material of each dress.  Our illustration of it shows exactly what it looks like, and how, by a clever alteration of Mrs Miller's own, the chief defect, so often found in the "Princess dress," is got over—i.e. the cutting across the front, so as to permit the skirt and the bodice being fitted accurately on the wearer...

The dresses we show in our illustrations were all made in this manner; and it can be gathered from them how easy it is to make any style of drapery or ornamentation to suit the foundation.  The greatest freedom of movement is gained by the dress being made in one piece, and for the home dressmaker this seems an immense advance.

Mrs. Jeuness Miller considers that one of the great essentials for a perfectly health-promoting dress is to get rid of bands at the waist, and though the waist is larger, it is more natural in form, more healthy, and more comfortable.  All the garments are made in one piece, and the weight and warmth are equally distributed.  The ordinary dress is always worn, and there is no desire to have anything conspicuous or ugly; nothing revolutionary is intended, and there is nothing to attract attention in the reformed costume but its superior prettiness and grace.

"Correct Clothing and How It Should Be Made" (Girl's Own Paper, February 24th 1883)

 Real Life™ has got in the way of me posting to this blog for a while.  Happily, Real Life has also provided some blog fodder, in the form of two volumes of The Girl's Own Annual from 1882 and 1883.

It's interesting that this very Victorian column should be called "Correct Clothing", not "attractive" clothing or "stylish" clothing.  However, when you dig down into the piece you discover that "Correct" in this context means becoming and currently fashionable.  I'm going to quote at length from it.  Some of the advice is still applicable, though modern writers would phrase things differently!

"Dress," says a famous London doctor in a recent lecture, "should be to the body what language is to the mind."

"And how," at once some of my readers, "is this knowledge to be gained?"  To this I answer, by the study of two branches of art—i.e. form and colour; form as regards question of height and breadth in the people you see around you, and colour in reference to complexion and size.

As regards the former, there are a few rules by which you may also be guided.  Thus, the very stout should avoid perpendicular stripes in dress, as although they give height, they increase fulness; and horizontal should be avoided by short people and very stout ones.  Large patterns should be avoided by short people, and left to the tall ones, who can manage to carry them off gracefully.  The former should also beware of wearing double skirts or tunics short and bunchy in shape, and also of lines made across the figure by flounces or trimmings which cut it in the centre.  The short and stout must also dress the hair high—at least, as much so as the fashion of the time will allow.

A dress cut high behind, or high on the shoulders, gives the benefit of the whole height of the figure, and a horizontal line of trimming across the neck, bust or shoulders decreases the apparent height of the wearer.    Full and puffed sleeves are an improvement to every figure, except to a very stout one, to which the plain coat-sleeve, not cut too tight, is more suitable.  Very light colours should be avoided by those who are stout, as their size is very much increased, whereas by wearing black materials it is diminished.  Any attempt to increase the height by a very high or large head-dress should be avoided as such an enlargement of the head dwarfs the figure.

A person with a prominent or large nose should beware of wearing a small bonnet, and no one over thirty years of age can afford to have a shadow thrown on her face from too large a hat or bonnet, as that increases the apparent age.

In making dresses for young girls when they happen to be very thin, great attention should be paid to the fact, and every endeavor made to hide deficiencies by means of extra fulness of trimming in the bodice and skirt.  They are often made fun of for this as they are for a little extra stoutness, which is very cruel and foolish, especially if it be family fun.  I have known a young girls mind and character permanently warped by such "chaff", and when the nerves are delicate and the temper consequently irritable it should be immediately checked by the heads of the family.

Good advice!

And now some insight into the fashions of February 1883:

Braiding continues to be the great feature of walking and thick dress of all kinds, and nothing could be more useful, as well as pretty, than the blue serges with black braidings, which some of the shops have brought out.  When woollen skirts are box-pleated, the braiding is placed on either the face or the pleat or else in the spaces.  Another method of braiding is shown on the extreme right-hand figure of our month's illustration, where it appears on the plain underskirt and on the bodice, but not on the overskirt, which is very fully draped, but has no ornament.  The centre figure wears a skirt with two flounces, and a scarf overskirt, the front being a braided piece with a pointed end hanging down each side.  The bodice is braided down each seam à la militaire.   Braided dresses will, I think, preserve preserve their popularity through the coming spring and summer; so any of our readers who like the work may safely begin to prepare a dress for themselves...

All kinds of lace collars are much worn, and are copied from the numberless portraits of ancient days.  Rubens and Holbein are especially rich in their examples of them...

Very fanciful broaches are still the rage, and the most extraordinary combination of objects, the most unsuitable, apparently, to the position in which they are placed, are often to be seen.  Ducks, parrots, spiders, crocodiles, tambourines, "Punch and Judy", bull-dogs and a host of other things are now brought over from Paris in that light imitation jewellery that suits ephemeral fancies like these.

Collectors of costume jewellery might like to take note!

200 Years Ago (Ackermann's Repository, February 1823)

 Before the middle of the twentieth century no respectable person would be seen outdoors without some kind of headgear.  This meant that hats and headdresses were as necessary to a complete outfit as shoes—and much more visible.

1. [Top left]  Bolivar hat of black velvet; the brim, narrow and equal width, is continued from the right side about the satin band of the crown, form a double front, which is finished on the left with a small gold tassel...

(Named for the South American freedom fighter Simon Bolivar, the "Bolivar hat" had a broad brim and a cylindrical crown.  While the Bolivar hat was usually worn by men, this version has been adapted for women.)

2. [Top right] Cap of tulle; the crown covered with three satin tulip leaves...

(Caps were worn indoors by married and older single women.  They performed a double function of proclaiming the wearer's status and concealing thinning and/or greying hair.)

3. [Centre] Circassian turban of silver muslin, with a bird of Paradise, beneath which is a rich ostrich feather falling very low on the left side.

(If caps were worn indoors during the day, turbans were worn with formal evening wear.)

4. [Bottom left]  Bonnet composed of Ponceau velvet...  This bonnet is very fashionable in black velvet and satin, with pomegranate-blossoms.

5. [Bottom right]  Bonnet composed of gros de Naples of two colours: the crown, which is round, and rather low, is of lemon colour; the front is of lavender colour, and very full, but confined by four flat straps, which are continued withinside...

(While hats were worn, bonnets were THE most fashionable head wear for women through most of the nineteenth century.  Like all fashions bonnet styles were in constant flux. The ones depicted here are starting to increase in size, culminating with the very LARGE bonnets worn in the late 1820s and early 1830s.)