My Fair Lady

I was in London on business a few weeks ago. The first day was pre-planned "jet lag day": arrive early, sleep it off, work a little, and walk around in the noon day sun. Early to bed, and tomorrow, you're good as new. (Because I love London so much, I won't complain about the billable day lost in the process).

My hotel was near both Saville Row and the business district, so I took the opportunity of my stroll to look for London business women. I was hoping to confirm that the clothes I had packed would not be too far off base.

Here's what I found:

1)   There are no London business women!

I wandered through bustling London streets, for two hours on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon, and I simply could not find any exemplars. At first I thought I was in the wrong place, or it was the wrong time, but there were businessmen everywhere in classic London business dress: chalk stripes, colorful shirts, cufflinks and flashy ties. Where were the women?

I cannot explain this, except possibly, as pure law of numbers. Are there still so many fewer women in the business world in London than in the United States?

Finally, I found a few. And I do mean a few, two maybe, in that whole long walk. I saw a small handful of others in meetings the next day, and I learned something else:

2)   On my (admittedly small) sample size, London business women dress like U.S. business women dressed twenty years ago.

The women I saw and met were all wearing skirts or dresses. ALL of them! And (with the exception of some extraordinary shoes--we didn't wear those in the early '90s!), the skirts were the same stodgy, man-like skirt suits we abandoned in 1999.


Now, I have nothing against skirts and dresses. I often wear them, but increasingly, when I'm at my most lawyerly -- in court or for a pitch to a prospective client for a hundred million dollar case -- I wear trousers. Elegant, shapely, female trousers, but trousers, nonetheless. (I'm especially partial to Elie Tahari.)

Trousers are an evolution. When I started practicing law, they were not permitted. With the exception of a few (old and now deceased) judges who made clear their views on the abomination of women in trousers, the rule was unwritten. But it was universally followed. There were slightly more elegant versions and considerably less elegant versions, but the norm was skirt suits with nude stockings and a low square heel. Designers had not yet learned how to design suits that were female without being frilly, so they put women in male suits plus boxy skirt.

What was wrong with trousers? I don't know, really. There's no answer to that, except that there was something vaguely frightening about it, and not just to men. Somewhere, subconsciously, we were all afraid--men and women alike--that if the women did everything just like the men--if the women were not only lawyers but, gasp, even wore trousers--we would all lose our way.

London can be a confusing city. But the maps are excellent and omnipresent. If you keep your head, you can't get too terribly lost. I'm pretty sure in a few years, the women in trousers will be everywhere.

(But, please, keep the shoes). Ooo, la, la.