Who Wears the Pants?
April 15, 2012
Yesterday, as I held my breath and squeezed myself into my Brazilian jeans, I wondered what my mother would have said.
Here I am, 70-something and wearing skin-tight jeans. Did my mother even own a pair of jeans? Did I ever see her in public in anything that didn’t have a skirt? Was there such a thing as a trouser sock in her day?
I remember when women first could wear pantsuits to the office. I had just returned to work after two years as a stay-at-home Mom in the early 1970’s. The rule was that the jacket of your pantsuit had to cover your butt. And a blouse with a big bow at your neck was part of the deal.
Forty years later, my work wardrobe is about 50-50 pantsuits and skirts. But none of my pantsuit jackets cover my butt and there are no bows on my blouses.
We’ve come a long way baby. These days, it’s no longer clear who wears the pants in the house.
The rule I remember about wearing pants in the early 70s was that they had to be part of a suit, i.e. a matching jacket.
Posted by: Ellen | April 16, 2012 at 09:02 PM