Wearing pants may be a no-brainer for many women, but pants have only been common since the mid-20th Century.
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| Pants by DVF, Tibi and Stella McCartney |
- Women didn't start wearing pants as a fashionable item until well into the 20th Century, but a hundred years before women used men's trousers for outdoor work.
- Actress Marlene Dietrich wore tuxedos and helped make pants more acceptable for women to wear.
- Katherine Hepburn often wore pants. In 1934, she told a gossip columnist: "They are comfortable and convenient. And because it amazes people. I like to do unusual things." Her bosses thought she projected a too tough and stuck-up image, so they went as far as taking her pants away. Instead of going for a skirt, she walked around the studio lot in only her underwear until her pants were returned.
- During WWII, as women took on jobs, they started wearing their husbands' pants. In Britain, women also wore their husbands pants because of rationing of clothing.
- In Malawi, women were only allowed to wear pants after 1994. But still, it is not accepted as the norm.
- In 2012, North Korea allowed women to wear pants in public, which was punishable by hard labor or a fine equivalent to one week's salary.
