Fashion: Problems in Pants

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Anthropologist Margaret Mead, perhaps because she is a woman, thinks trousers are just fine—although she rarely wears them. "Women are looking for greater freedom—freedom from corsets, girdles, tight belts, tight shoes—just as men have been trying to get out of tight collars," she says. Norman Norell, perhaps because he is a designer, thinks that a woman actually has more sex appeal in trousers than in a dress. "Ripping off a woman's pants is sexier than ripping off a dress," he says. (And harder, it might be added.) But Sociologist-Author Charles Winick (The New People) probably comes closer to reflecting the majority masculine view. "Pants," he points out, "make extemporaneous sex more difficult." To say nothing about the fact that they also defeminize a shapely pair of legs.

Still, nothing, obviously, is going to stop females from wearing trousers—at least until the fashion winds shift. In fact, Designer Geoffrey Beene predicts that "by the year 2000, women will be wearing only pants." There is one thing that men can do to retaliate: stop wearing pants themselves. Paris Couturier Pierre Cardin expects them to do just that. Last month, when he showed his new menswear collection, the first garment displayed was a sleeveless jumper designed to be worn over high vinyl boots. In other words, a dress.