Empowerment is the foundation of fashion. Some feel strength in structured suiting, others in sweeping skirts. It’s time to choose your fighter
Women choosing to wear suits was once a fierce sign of rebellion. In the 1930s, women were arrested for wearing pantsuits because of its masculine silhouette and, when tailoring became popular for women’s workwear in the 1960s, it was still shrouded in controversy. Coco Chanel designed her first suit in 1914 – complete with an ankle-length skirt – followed by André Courrèges in 1964 and Yves Saint Laurent in 1966, the latter of whom created a phenomenon with Le Smoking, a sharp-shouldered tuxedo suit. The rest as they say is (fashion) history. Decades later, fashion’s fiercest minds continue to borrow silhouettes from the boys, transforming them into staples every working woman should have in their arsenal. Explore summer’s sharpest silhouettes in the gallery above.
