How Women’s Working Fashion Evolved in the 20th Century

In 1920, legislation passed to provide working women with employment opportunities and pay equal to men, although sometimes, pay still hasn’t been equal. Since the ’20s, the way women have dressed in the workplace has evolved quite a bit.

From dresses to pants suits, women’s workplace fashion has come quite a long way. Let’s go through the timeline and see what influenced each major change and why…

1920s Shop Girls

Although flappers are most commonly associated with the 1920s, that was far from the style of working women back then.

Girls who worked as shop assistants had to dress a little more modestly with a daytime dress or a uniform of shirtwaist dresses with white collars.

1920s Labor Girls

Women that did manual labor such as factory work, sewing, nursing, housekeeping or nannying, and foodservice were required to wear specialty uniform coats like a smock or apron over a cotton simple house frock.

Here is a woman wearing her apron while working at a radio factory in Philadelphia.

1930s

The Depression did little to change things for women in the workplace, in the 1930s three out of ten women were working. And, they were still expected to look nice and wear makeup and skirts.

The sales of makeup and cosmetics even doubled in the thirties!

1940s

Between 1940 and 1945 women’s labor increased by 50%, which is partially due to men going off to war. Women were starting to get jobs that were typically given to men. Thus, their clothing changed to more masculine attire like overalls and pants.