Fashion has a thing for female empowerment right now, which has moved on from feminist slogan T-shirts to office tailoring
A woman in a trouser suit shouldn’t be a contentious sight. However, as Hillary Clinton discovered, this is not the case: a woman in a trouser suit is a look that still invites comment. Whether it’s a politician making a speech in a bright-coloured pantsuit, a Helmut Newton model in a Parisian street wearing an Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking tux, or a policewoman in uniform – a woman in a trouser suit is always seen as a challenge.
This autumn will be full of challenges, because trouser suits for women are happening in a major way. Fashion has a thing for female empowerment right now, which has moved on from feminist slogan T-shirts to expressing itself in corner-office tailoring. We don’t have time here to debate whether a trouser suit is intrinsically more empowering than a floral dress. All I’m going to say on the subject is that fashion means well by its talk of empowerment – even if it amounts to a hill of beans – and I don’t see how wearing trouser suits can do any harm, so long as we acknowledge that the Céline catwalk probably isn’t going to smash the patriarchy all by itself.
Related: What I wore this week: the new kaftan
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