With a trash can of bras and a sheep named Betty, budding activist Robin Morgan took to the Atlantic City boardwalk to protest the 1968 Miss America Pageant. Such theatrics of the day were intended to demonstrate the parallels of pageantry to that of a livestock competition held at the county fair. Coincidentally, just blocks away at the Ritz Carlton on that same afternoon, was the first ever Miss Black America Pageant sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

As the day progressed, the demonstration garnered a crowd of 200 feminists and the attention of numerous television news stations. One reporter asked Morgan for her thoughts specifically on the Miss Black America pageant. “Basically, we’re against all beauty pageants,” she asserted. Feminine beauty was a decided burden to Morgan and other (predominately white) leading feminists of the time, failing to acknowledge their own privilege. It wasn't until two years later, upon leaving New York City to promote her first book, did Morgan find herself impacted by the public's perception of her own femininity.

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In a more recent conversation with 'Dior Talks' podcast host Justine Picardie, Morgan summarizes the wardrobe she packed for the trip as baggy jeans and combat boots. But as she traveled across rural states, like Iowa and Oklahoma, she noticed that many of her readers in attendance were housewives, secretaries, and nurses, donned in skirts and dresses. She describes coming to the realization that "My entire image [was] one that telegraphs 'I am not you and you are not me.'" In response, Morgan thoughtfully refined her wardrobe with a more feminine touch, which included fitted jeans and quality boots, and quickly found a more receptive audience. "There was a middle ground that I inhabited where I was comfortable, but the message nonetheless got sent," Morgan said. "[My appearance] was more recognizable to them, and they met me halfway."

Contrary to beauty and femininity, denim jeans have transcended race, gender, and even class status, exploding into the $77.67 billion global denim market we know today. With North America accounting for a 34.9% share, Grand View research attributes its colossal size to the “rising popularity of women’s wear in countries such as the U.S. and Canada” estimating the average American woman to own six pairs. Furthermore, for nearly fifteen years, skinny jeans dominated women's denim sales making its decline in the spring of 2022 both shocking and headline worthy.

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Reported in a slew of Tik-Tok videos, Gen Z women and girls condemned the style to be officially “over” accusing it of being uncomfortable, impractical, and unflattering. The sentencing provoked brief hysteria amongst their elder sisters but overall simply moderated sales by style. Having accounted for roughly 41% of women’s denim sales in 2021, skinny jean sales had dropped to 30% while straight-leg styles increased to 33%. 

By May, media coverage had pivoted to the Supreme Court's revocation of Roe v. Wade. Despite having reaffirmed the intial 1973 ruling in 1992, citing “the ability of women to equally participate in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives,” suggests the Court intentionally decided to diminish a woman's right to financial independence. For the Supreme Court to enact such power within weeks of women questioning their personal style indicates a bigger picture. Within the time that American women crafted denim jeans into a symbol of gender equality, how did democracy itself resist?

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Prior to being recognized as American citizens in 1920, women were consumers strictly kept to society’s domestic realm. During the nation's rapid industrial growth in the late nineteenth century, homemakers were suddenly the target market for modern conveniences like ready-made clothing. Historically a craft practiced by every day women, fashion was swiftly eclipsed with mass-manufactured trends overseen by business men.

In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture established the Bureau of Home Economics as a research program to support, elevate and professionalize the feminine realm. During a time when the purpose and need of a woman’s education remained controversial, the bureau was a progressive effort in that it offered a palatable context for young women to be educated in both art and science. With cutting-edge scientific research, the bureau’s curriculum was offered at agricultural colleges across the country making the United States among the first nations to institutionalize knowledge and skills of the home. Topics included nutrition, sanitization, and child development enabling women to make informed decisions when navigating the increasingly oversaturated market of consumer goods. 

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Established by early home economists Harriet and Vetta Goldstein, American decorative arts included dress and were ruled by the five art principles of beauty: harmony, rhythm, balance, proportion, and emphasis. In her book, The Lost Art of Dress, historian Linda Przybyszewski details each in its regard to fashion while exploring the unique association of beauty and “serviceability.” A woman who possesses an understanding of her personal appearance and style, Przybyszewski argues, wields the power to satisfy "the biology of the eye, the psychology of the mind, and appeal to the depths of the human spirit."

When men were drafted into World War I, and women stayed behind to fulfill their roles in manufacturing, transportation, farming, etc., and wore pants for the first time. Initially a choice made for practicality, many continued to wear pants after the war as a fashion choice. Though disapproved by home economists at first, retailers sided with profit and proceeded to offer a wide variety of ready-to-wear pant styles, most notably being the debut of Lady Levi’s in 1934.

After World War II, the question of pants was raised in both Hollywood and Washington, D.C. as style icons like Marylin Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and First Lady Jackie O. began appearing publicly in jeans. For teens, the ideas of virtue and tradition were increasingly provoked by public figures and pop culture. As all pants remained in violation of girls’ school dress codes, an added air of adventure and fantasy was cast onto an already rebellious image.

The bureau’s response was polarized. For progressive home economists, pants were perfectly acceptable for studying or leisure activities but, to preserve “focus on the task at hand,” they continued to endorse skirts as appropriate for most daily occasions like attending class. In contrast, traditionalist felt any sight of a woman in pants to be “distracting” and look “lousy.” In spite of the controversy, high school and college students increasingly chose denim jeans to challenge their place within the American Dream.

The bureau’s curriculum was also designed and required exclusively for female students, meanwhile its textbooks projected the ideal feminine image as being definitively thin and white. Amidst the civil rights movement, the bureau’s legitimacy was crumbling which justified the redistribution of its federal funding and resources to more publicly favorable causes. The inability of home economists to evolve in unity with their students proved fatal. By 1962, the bureau was reorganized out of existence.

Leading feminists viewed the bureau’s disbandment as a distinct victory but in truth, the event left behind a void in regard to the integrity of a woman’s public appearance. This prompted L.A. Times writer Beth Ann Krier to ask members of the Los Angeles Women’s Center the question of what a feminist may look like. The verdict? "One of the best ways to keep a woman down is to keep her so involved with how she looks, she doesn't think of anything else."

Despite dedicated to elevating women to first-class citizens, second-wave feminism failed to acknowledge the rooted truths of an existing nation. In contrast, for a certain Ohio merchant, understanding women living within such confines is what he did best. His name was Leslie Wexner and his store was “The Limited,” known for its distinct focus on women’s clothing. Born to Russian Jewish immigrants in the historically conservative state, Wexner grew up working class. While his peers played high school sports or participated in extracurriculars, Wexner helped out around his father's general merchandise store as a mere observer of American life.

Wexner began expanding his business in 1982 with the curious acquisition of a dying lingerie catalog brand, Victoria’s Secret. Later in a television interview, he describes driving down the highway when a thought dawned on him. “All women are wearing underwear most of the time,” he laughs,  “when all the women I know would rather be wearing lingerie.” Beyond recognizing them in their public roles, in that moment, Wexner was seemingly the first businessman to consider what women wanted privately.

Detailed in Hulu's documentary Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons, is Wexner’s admiration for business moguls, like Ralph Lipschitz (of Ralph Lauren), and his unique vision to elevate, romanticize and democratize women’s lingerie while removing any visible trace of masculinity from its branded story. In doing so, America was introduced to “Victoria,” a refined, ambitious, and independent English woman with a shoppable wardrobe.

Wexner wanted the catalog to have a more “editorial” feel which translated into booking high fashion stylists and photographers to elegantly depict the industry’s top models in luxurious homes around the world. Previous VS model Frederique Van Der Wal remembers early shoots as “empowering women to own their bodies,” while journalist Teri Agins notes how the brand’s new feel “made it acceptable for mainstream women to buy and covet underwear. They were given permission to treat themselves.” The rebrand made Victoria’s Secret one of the bestselling catalog brands, leading Wexner to make another unexpected purchase in 1988.

Established as an outdoorsmen store for the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt, Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) was reimagined into the “sexy Ralph Lauren” Gen X and Millennials most likely recall from their youth. While directed at teenagers, the brand was renowned for its own sexy catalogs and creating the “It” skinny jeans of the aughts. During the brand’s peak in 2006, Salon notoriously quoted CEO Mike Jeffries’ as crediting the company’s success to narrowly targeting “cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”

But mainstream consumer interests have drastically changed in the twenty years since, reports The Guardian. According to the Center for Scholars and Storytellers (CSS) at UCLA, the majority of adolescents between the ages of 13-24 wanted more viewing content centered around platonic friendships, rather than sex and romance, and only 10.5% classified their preferred content as aspirational wealth and fame.

In terms of beauty standards, Glossy notes how social media has functioned to “decentralize and democratize beauty,” serving to “emulate a two-way conversation rather than a lecture.” Having come of age amidst the climate crisis, social media, and the COVID-19 pandemic, Gen Z consumers are known to approach fashion with a more conceptual mindset and shop generally more pragmatically rather than follow cyclical trends.

Comparatively shaped by global conflict and the civil rights movement, adolescent Baby Boomers were maturing into a sharply divided America buffered by the bureau’s public teachings of cohesive appearance and dress. When second-wave feminism called upon women to abandon the stability of traditions past, it did so without any formally vetted principles of how to build feminine wealth in a man’s world. Additionally charged by increasing accessibility to contraceptives, by the 1980s, American women found themselves living in an era of unprecedented sexual liberation.

More or less responsible for applying sex to jeans and igniting the denim explosion is designer Calvin Klein. “Jeans are sex. The tighter they are, the better they sell,” he claimed. Despite his jeans being twice the price of boxier options offered by Levi’s and Wrangler, sales sky-rocketed. As young women entered a world of expanding possibility, skin-tight jeans appeared to fulfill the mounting dualities they were expected to.

The year Wexner bought A&F his net worth reached $1.4 billion, ranking him sixth on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. Having attained affluence across the Mid-West, Wexner’s next feat was conquering New York but once again he found himself ostracized. Desperately seeking a bridge into Manhattan's high society, Wexner found himself crossing paths with a certain late financial advisor, Jeffrey Epstein. By 1991, Wexner had covertly granted full power of attorney to Epstein, including unmitigated control of his business and personal assets. 

Jeffries, hired as CEO of A&F in 1992, insisted on booking Calvin Klein’s photographer, Bruce Weber, to shape the brand’s new look. Known for outlandish promiscuity often spotlighting sculpted, bare-chested men, Weber’s eye inversely complimented L Brand's vision by using the ideal male form to market clothing to girls and women. Soon teenage bedrooms and lockers were plastered with shopping bags and catalog clippings logoed abs, meanwhile skinny jeans were the only jeans.

For years, social media users had criticized both brands for promoting culturally toxic ideals, but the cause didn’t gain traction until the Salon interview resurfaced in 2013. As a result, stocks plummeted and Jeffries stepped down in 2014. While allegations of Epstein's and other male executives' predatory behavior were reported as early as 1993, Epstein was not arrested for sex-trafficking until 2019. As public interest peered into who and what financially supported the disgraced financier’s elaborate operation, intricacies of Epstein’s relationship with Wexner eventually surfaced as well. In 2021, Wexner severed ties with L Brands, prompting a $2.7 billion selling spree, leaving him with 2% of his once retail monolith. Weber additionally settled his own string of lawsuits that year while A&F remains entangled in legal battles related to Jeffries’ alleged sexual misconduct at time of publishing.

By harnessing the fiscal power of femininity within the facade of mainstream fashion, patriarchal systems have thrived and grown to the extent of overpowering the written U.S. Constitution. But, amidst the “woke” era of social media, fashion brands, designers, and CEOs are increasingly being analyzed, criticized, and pressed to publicly repent to their politically-subjective sins. As matters of morals and ethics ultimately remain up to the individual consumer, perhaps we can collectively usher in a more fashionable doctrine for the modern women.