Salacious or suitable: a tale of tailored controversy and women in suits

When Billy Porter stepped onto the red carpet of the 91st Academy Awards, a sartorial seismic shift occurred. Wearing a black tuxedo gown – merging masculine and feminine tailoring – his fashion choices became a powerful symbol for self-expression and representation. Almost a year later, heart-throb Harry Styles graced British Vogue’s December 2020 cover in a Gucci ensemble that included an ethereal dress and a sharply cut jacket. As a result, he faced conservative commentators questioning the conformity of a male singer wearing clothing traditionally reserved to women. 

Today, celebrities and style icons continue a tradition of pushing the boundaries of what society considers decorum. In 2018, the Council of Fashion Designers added a new category of "unisex/nonbinary" to New York Fashion Week, featuring gender neutral brands such as Vaquera and Telfar. In 2020, London Fashion Week abandoned their binary schedule, merging their women’s and menswear shows to a unisex celebration of style. This shift didn’t just permeate the the runways. Gender fluid dress seeped into the world of street style, pointing to a paradigm shift in the world of fashion.

In her work, Lucy Adlington explores the symbolism of clothing. “Clothes are far more powerful than people give them credit for,” she says. The clothes historian and author of Stitches in Time continues, “Wearing the ‘right’ clothes for an occasion can give us a confidence boost that is manifested in the way we walk and the way we interact with people.”

We’re speaking about the history of women in suits. A conversation that understandably centres on the way controversy and fashion have always been interlinked. Danish designer Mark Kenly Domino Tan – whose impeccable tailoring is renowned in the industry – agrees with Adlington’s sentiments. “A good suit for me is like a partner in crime,” he says. “It is a magical solution to feeling personable and prepared, especially if you are the centre of attention for an event.” Although only relatively recently included in women’s wardrobes, the suit has historically offered freedom and power to the set of women who dared to wear them at a time when it was frowned upon.

Rosalind McKever, co-curator of Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear at the V&A [opening 19th of March, 2022] and exhibition research assistant Marta Franceschini, points out that historically, menswear and womenswear have echoed each other. Silhouettes, embellishments and colours have crossed from closet to closet. “Just think of Christina of Sweden, a woman raised to be a king, known for wearing masculine attire in the mid-seventeenth century,” McKever and Franceschini says. 

Actress Sarah Bernhardt pioneered making a man's suit her own when in public wearing her 'boy's clothes' in 1870, she caused a certified scandal. But this controversy didn't keep her from further challenging gender roles – she went on to play the lead in Hamlet in 1899. Spearheading what has become the sartorial calling card of modern women, she was the original champion of the trouser suit and – in many ways – ahead of her time.

The male suit as we know it was established in the early nineteenth century, and as a result, women wearing it became even more taboo. “In 1800, a French prefectural decree outlawed women dressing as men, except for the period of Carnival. In fact, women wearing trousers in France was only legalised in 2013,” McKever and Franceschini says. From the late nineteenth century onwards, many women adopted the defiant power of wearing tailored skirt suits. Cultural norms at the time pushed flowing, floating, florals for women – As Adlington exemplifies: “think chiffon, ruffles and ribbons.” But, according to Adlington, women pushed back. Instead, they chose neat tweeds, bold shoulders and crisp linens. It was a signifier that women wanted to participate in the public, professional and financial arenas dominated by men. “Suits signalled women’s intention to be seen as capable rather than decorative. In fact, the subversion of the suit - through blouses, bows and costume jewellery - showed they could be both,” says Adlington.

The true revolution of women wearing suits occurred in twentieth-century Paris. Josephine Baker was performing in a tuxedo, and Coco Chanel channelled the tailoring of her male lovers into her womenswear suits – taking inspiration from the clothes that her then-boyfriend, the Duke of Westminster, would wear. Chanel herself would even reportedly wear her lovers’ clothes because she believed menswear to be more comfortable than pre-war women’s fashion of the time.

Certain celebrities have set the agenda in 20th century fashion. In their 1933 September Issue, American Vogue published one of their earliest images depicting a woman in a trouser suit. In the feature dubbed Riviera Days and Nights, silver screen starlet and famous fashion non-conformist Marlene Dietrich is seen sporting a summer suit. 

She wasn’t the only woman in Hollywood raising eyebrows at the time. Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn also championed subversive fashion, challenging gender norms in their wardrobes of smartly tailored three-piece suits and trousers. “They brought to mass audiences a powerful, alluring androgyny pioneered within LGBTQ+ communities,” explains McKever and Franceschini. “The combination of elegance and practicality appealed to a generation of increasingly emancipated young women.”

In 1966, these sensual and rebellious connotations inspired Yves Saint Laurent’s iconic Le Smoking. He carefully adapted his female tuxedo’s proportions to flatter the female shape, later calling it his most significant design. At the time, however, the style was highly controversial. American socialite Nan Kempner was turned away from a fashionable New York restaurant for daring to wear her Saint Laurent suit – rumour has it that when asked to return in a dress or skirt, she took the trousers off and wore only the blazer. 

In two disparately different articles, an issue of Life magazine from 1968 reveals just how divisive the style was. Lamenting Yves Saint Laurent’s trouser suits, a male columnist wrote about how they were contributing to the “destruction” of gender norms. However, at the back of the magazine, a woman points out that “a well-cut trouser suit is most appropriate for city-wear” and in regards to restaurants refusing trouser-wearing women entry, she is quoted to say that: “I would rather change my restaurant than my clothes.” 

McKever and Franceschini points out that Le Smoking is arguably one of the most glamorous outcomes of the sexual revolution. Modelled by the likes of Betty Catroux to Claudia Schiffer, the jacket aligned itself with the ideas of sexual liberation for the Second Wave Feminism movement, which arose during the 1960s.

In the 1980s, women adapted an attitude of ‘I’m here, deal with me’ in their dress. Thus, the power suit was born, wide-shouldered and with individual flair. “Throughout the 20th century - and even now, I’d argue - women in professional settings such as offices and boardrooms face the uneasy task of balancing individual flair with perceived ideas of what’s professional,” says Adlington. “Underneath, there might be slinky undies, but the carapace was all about ‘capable’.” She continues: “Women wore this style of suit as they banged their perms against the glass ceiling. The power suit was an embodiment of aspiration.”

On-screen, Annie Hall came to personify unisex styling – a mode of dress focused on loose layering of outsize menswear was radical in that it hid the female form beneath. “The ‘male gaze’ was irrelevant; it would require imagination to penetrate the protective layers,” Adlington points out. “In this sense, the Annie Hall look was a powerful statement that women were dressing to please themselves.” In some ways’ Annie Hall’, like many other movie icons before her, offered women a chance to play ‘dress up’ - to try on a different character. Clothes can do that for us. However, the issue of Annie Hall’s styling was that it was very much a one-way street.” Rarely do we see ‘unisex’ styles that emphasise traditionally female clothing. Until recently, unisex meant women wearing softened versions of traditionally male clothing,” says Adlington.

Towards the 1990s, inevitably lines softened and padding shrank. We moved towards a more easy-going alliance between appearance and abilities. As Adlington points out, a reason could be that women in the workforce perhaps had less to prove. In this decade, designers such as Giorgio Armani and Romeo Gigli preferred soft materials caressing the body. “It is interesting how much exchange there has been in recent decades,” says McKever and Franceschini. “Today, the lightweight fabrics of the womenswear ‘flou’ ateliers are ubiquitous in menswear, from Jonathan Anderson to Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s collections.” Anderson is one of a generation of menswear designers redefining the meaning of unisex, joining the throngs of subversive sartorial icons before him. The female gaze is more apparent than ever in today’s menswear: Sarah Burton, Donatella Versace, Grace Wales Bonner, Priya Ahluwalia: powerful women allowing their sensibility to shape their vision, updating our understanding of “masculine” dress. 

Today, suits play an essential role in people dressing beyond the binary. “What we think of a ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ clearly changes over time,” Adlington says. “Sometimes the change takes centuries; sometimes it can be in the flash of a single TikTok video.” She continues, “I love how the modern wardrobe is crammed with clothes with a multitude of mixed messages. We keep pushing against norms to be capable, decorative and expressive; to stand out or to fit in, I hope future fashion historians will be able to mock, gently, the divisions of clothes into ‘male’ and ‘female’.”

According to McKever and Franceschini, the suit has always been about dressing an individual’s body, and so it has the potential to be empowering for everyone. “There’s room for everyone to choose their own personal style, and I think it’s important to be able to inspire and challenge each other,” Kenley Domino Tan agrees. “I don’t see the death of the suit any time soon,” expands Adlington. “It has too many embodied meanings.” 


The power of the suit is its versatility, how it can be worn for any occasion by anyone. Over the years, it has become timeless and genderless. “I don’t think the classic understanding of a suit will change much in the future,” says Kenley Domino Tan. “But I do think we will be more open-minded. Let’s celebrate that fact that we are finally living in a time where we choose clothing by how we feel and not how society labels us.” He concludes that “I’m sure this will be completely normalised in the future.” 


And although the suit has transformed, it still exudes a certain gravitas. An iconography of capability – regardless of gender.