FANCY PANTS

Marlene Dietrich wearing a trouser suit aboard the SS Europa • 1933 • Cherbourg, France • Photograph by Paul Cwojdzinski via Deutsche Kinemathek - Marlene Dietrich Collection

Though the legendary actress Marlene Dietrich made headlines for being one of the first women to proudly wear fashionable menswear (specifically trousers), it is the Greek Amazons who are considered to be at the vanguard of women wearing pants, as depicted on surviving Ancient Greek alabastra dating to around 480 BC. As noted by the research scholar ‭Adrienne Mayor, “Looking to the Ancient Greeks for clues, we find that their writing and artwork implicate powerful “barbarian” women as the inventors of trousers.” ‬Dietrich, fearless like the Amazons that came before her, marched forward donning her handsomely unisex attire, even pending the threat of arrest in Paris in the early 1930s…

Painted ceramic alabastron depicting an armed Amazon warrior wearing anaxyrides (trousers or pantaloons) • Circa 480 - 470 B.C. • Attica, Greece • Attributed to the Syriskos Painter • Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton

“During the early 1930s, the actress became famous in Hollywood for wearing men’s suits on screen and on the town. When she was photographed on board the SS Europa en route to France in 1933 wearing a white suit, the Paris police sent a warning that she would be arrested if she wore menswear in the City of Lights. Dietrich disembarked in a tweed suit complete with a tie, overcoat, beret and sunglasses like a total boss. She was not arrested.” • The Adventurine

Marlene Dietrich and husband Rudolf Sieber arriving at Gare Saint-Lazare • May 19, 1933 • Paris

“According to Herodotus, when Greek soldiers met the Scythians in battle, they were amazed to see Scythian women on horseback fighting alongside the men, all wearing pants and decorated armor. When they went back to Greece they immortalized those Scythian women for posterity as the legendary Amazons in their poetry and art. Painting them looking both chic and fierce, their pictures of the Amazons are some of the earliest Western artworks showing women in pants. But even though pants came to the West from the Scythians and others (along with riding horses), in the West, wearing pants was associated with warfare and restricted to men only…” • The Toast

A doctored image printed as a response to Marlene Dietrich arriving in Paris wearing men’s clothing • Circa 1933 • Printed in the French news magazine Marianne

Painted alabastron depicting an armed Amazon warrior wearing a short chiton, an embroidered linen cuirass and anaxyrides (trousers or pantaloons) • Circa 480 B.C. • Attica, Greece • Attributed to the Group of the Negro Alabastra • The British Museum, London

Marlene Dietrich and Basil Rathbone, both wearing jodhpurs, filming one another on the set of The Garden Of Allah • 1936

Painted terracotta alabastron depicting an armed Amazon warrior wearing anaxyrides (trousers or pantaloons) • Circa 460 B.C. • Attica, Greece • Attributed to the Syriskos Painter • The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Marlene Dietrich captured in trousers on the set of Manpower • Circa 1941 • Photograph by László Willinger • Image courtesy of Christie’s via Barnebys

Painted alabastron depicting an armed Amazon warrior wearing anaxyrides (trousers or pantaloons) • Circa 490 - 480 B.C. • Attica, Greece

Marlene Dietrich posing in trousers on the set of Manpower • 1941 • Photograph by László Willinger • National Portrait Gallery, London

Painted clay alabastron depicting an armed Amazon warrior wearing anaxyrides (trousers or pantaloons) • Circa 490 - 480 B.C. • Attributed to the Painter of New York • State Museums of Berlin, Antiquities Collection / Johannes Laurentius, Berlin

Marlene Dietrich leaving the Paramount Studio in a tweed trouser suit after a day’s work • January 25, 1933 • Los Angeles • Bettmann Archive

Painted alabastron depicting an armed Amazon warrior wearing anaxyrides (trousers or pantaloons) • Circa 490 B.C. • Basel Museum of Antiquities and the Ludwig Collection, Basel

Marlene Dietrich getting into her Rolls Royce donning a tweed trouser suit • January 25, 1933 • Los Angeles • Bettmann Archive