The Trouser Silhouette

Women had worn trousers before the 1930s - for cycling, for factory work in the First World War, and in the loose, flowing beach pyjamas that became fashionable on the Riviera at the turn of the decade. What changed in the 1930s is that trousers began to appear, occasionally and controversially, as chic town clothes. That shift is small in terms of numbers but huge in terms of what came later.

The shape was wide and fluid: a high waist, often with pleats at the front, and a full leg falling straight from the hip to a long, pressed hem. Cut in wool flannel or crepe, and worn with a silk blouse, a knit, or a tailored jacket, it had a long, elegant line that suited the decade's taste for height and length. Hollywood did most of the work of making it glamorous. Marlene Dietrich wore a full man's tuxedo in Morocco (1930) and became famous for wearing trousers in public too, and Katharine Hepburn made slacks part of her personal, off-screen image - practical, athletic, and slightly defiant.

I think it's worth being careful not to overstate this. For most women in the 1930s, trousers were still for the beach, the garden, sport, or the countryside, and wearing them in town could get you stared at or even refused entry in some places. But the image of a stylish woman in wide-legged trousers was firmly established by the end of the decade, which made it much easier for women to take them up when war work demanded it - as the 1940s slacks silhouette shows. The 1930s is where trousers first become fashionable. The 1940s is where they become normal.