Women’s Office Fashions: From Holloway’s Wiggle Dress to Hillary’s Pantsuit

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To all the men out there who think a female’s obsession with fashion is merely superficial: perhaps you aren’t properly applying your “spatial knowledge.” What do you think happens when a straight pant leg is pulled up over a curved hip? Or a standard dress shirt is buttoned over breasts? That these proportions widely vary from woman to woman creates even more difficulty.

scarjo.jpgRight now I’m shopping for business meeting appropriate clothing and it’s a bother. Plus, I’m a head taller than the average woman so inseam measurements are just another way could-look-good outfits end up back on the floor. The alternative to looking like Joan Holloway is looking like a linebacker. Unfortunately, I’ll likely need to go with the latter, until I’ve saved enough for a good tailor. (”Getting things tailored,” as women’s magazines are always so quick to suggest, comes at a cost of at least $50 per item. In the end it may be cheaper to fly to Southeast Asia and back for a few bespoke suits.)

I love Mad Men as much as the next blogger, but one aspect of it I haven’t seen discussed is the relationship between Peggy and the rest of the women at Sterling-Cooper. Prior to watching the show, I thought of the women’s struggle in the workforce as a problem perpetuated by male bosses. But Mad Men demonstrates just as much tension comes from the other women, who, either jealous or comfortable with the status quo, don’t want to see Peggy get ahead. Secretaries wield an enormous amount of power in office politics.

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I’m probably reading too much into this, but we could think of Peggy’s choice of clothing as a reaction to this dynamic. Dressing in baggy clothes and muted colors, she is not just less attractive to the men at the office, but less competition to the women.

But does Joan Holloway really dress cheap? Or is she just dressing for her figure? Apart from the obvious use of certain undergarments as enhancement, Joan’s outfits are modest. See any of her dresses on a rack and they’d seem appropriate for Sunday’s sermon.

And they were. Women back then wore outfits cut specifically for rounder figures. That’s partly why the argument over Marilyn Monroe’s size is specious. Vanity sizing is real, and even at her heaviest there’s no way she’d be a size 14 by today’s standards. But with that hourglass figure there’s also no way she’d fit in a contemporary size 4. Marilyn Monroe could probably borrow Scarlett Johansson’ bespoke 6/00 hybrid clothes.

MadMen.jpgYoung women are sometimes advised by female mentors to wear sports bras to interviews because studies show leaner women tend to get hired more often in positions in power. So it is unlikely we’ll ever see a return to the Joan Holloway “wiggle dress” in corporate offices. Yet, those dresses cover just as much skin as contemporary A-line skirt and sweater-set coordinates. People continue to conflate a full figure with a sexually available figure. What many office women are doing is exactly what a 13 year old who wears baggy sweatshirts to school does: they are hiding their bodies to disguise their sexuality, and ward off comments. No matter how many manuals and SOPs are drafted, sexual harassment is sadly very common.

The view that Joan looks “slutty” plays into the backward fantasy that a voluptuous figure is built to be played with, and something to be ashamed of if one wants to be taken seriously in the workforce. Now we wouldn’t ask a Kate Moss lookalike to veil her face. And certainly there are those who prefer a straighter figure (whether they are attracted to what a lithe female form signals is a whole other story.) But to look at it as a whole, if the ideal image of a office worker is a man in a man’s suit, than a female employee will never look ideal.

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The main issue here is the fit. The comfort level. Clothing that fits a curvy figure also happens to enhance it. Clothing that does not properly fit will hide a woman’s figure. Half a century later, trends in clothing for professional women have borrowed straight lines from menswear, although women’s bodies haven’t evolved that way. Unless a woman has unusually straight proportions, a suit, whether Prada or H+M, won’t ever look quite right. I don’t hate my body in jeans. I don’t hate it in a bikini. But I hate my body in a pantsuit. It’s uncomfortable. I feel like I’m swimming in fabric.

HillaryClinton.jpgThe turning point was in the 80s with Working Girl defining the look. The fashions were Picasso-like in their abstractions of the female form. The shoulders were exaggerated and coats were cut long like dresses. It was confusion masquerading as confidence.

But contemporary women’s office dress didn’t change much once the shoulder pads were removed. If anything changed at all it was the introduction of rainbow colors, like the pantone chart that is Hillary Clinton’s pantsuit collection.

For her presidential campaign, Clinton needed to signal her authority “while conforming to an electably conservative presentation of gender,” as Kerry Howley explained in Reason last year. “Clinton’s struggle to find an aesthetic language and a politically amenable identity can come across as inauthentic—fashion flip-flopping. Witness the easter egg-colored pantsuit, a crude attempt to splice male fashion with non-threatening female hues.”

What is needed is more innovation from designers. My favorite blazers are silk and linen fabrics with stretch. But unfortunately most women’s suits are Scarlett.Johansson.lookingood.jpgmade with stiff and heavy material that is very unforgiving. Cape-like (really don’t cringe) blazers like that in the the 1968 Yves Saint Laurent Safari-inspired collection, are remarkably flattering and something I very much wish would take off. And how about this look Scarlett’s rocking with the bunchy blouse and open jacket? Alternatives are out there, but we need an Yves Saint Laurent fashion genius to introduce them to the mainstream.

And fashion trends have a longer life cycle than ever before. Yeah, gauchos and furry boots came and went, but for the most part your wardrobe doesn’t look much different than it did ten years ago. In comparison, it took only five years to go from Mad Men’s “New Look” style to the Summer of Love. Fashion designers are clearly inspired by the show, and many fall collections were attempts to modernize these looks. Michael Kors is so taken with it, he is giving away the first season DVD collection with any purchase. Even if more relaxed, feminine looks are introduced as office attire, it will take a while (and twice that if you live in Boston or DC) to enter the mainstream. But I’m patient and optimistic.

Previously:

Rip Mix Stitch: Free Fashion Culture

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Posted by Joanne on Aug. 24, 2008 Tagged: , , , , , , ,

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