In 1939, Vogue illustrated a woman in a pair of pants on the cover of it’s May issue. The editors wrote, “Our new slacks are irreproachably masculine in their tailoring, but women have made them entirely their own by the colors in which they order them, and the accessories they add.” However the article goes on to depict when, where and how these slacks may be worn, stating ‘One Iron Rule is that they are well-cut and well-creased to appear properly ‘feminine’ and stresses the necessity to avoid the ‘mannish accessories’ that characterised the ‘early, experimental days’ of trouser-wearing. So women could be free to wear whatever they wanted as long as they still looked like a stepford housewife and looked pretty for their husbands!
