In 1942, Rosie the Riveter, heroine of the working American woman, starred in a wartime campaign aimed at recruiting women to work in factories and shipyards. We’ve all seen the now-iconic poster where she poses in a boilersuit, with a fearless gaze and flexed bicep, alongside the slogan: We Can Do It!
Today, Rosie’s heirs have made it off the factory floor and onto the runway, where that same can-do spirit prevails. For fall, Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri cooked up a quilted boilersuit that was as utilitarian as it was refined; at Salvatore Ferragamo, Paul Andrew’s take on the look, rendered in tobacco-hued leather, conjured simultaneous toughness and elegance; and Isabel Marant’s khaki version, collarless and strong-shouldered, emanated both power and ease—along with a sense that there is power in ease. Today’s suits look like they know how to fix a carburetor while swilling a champagne cocktail. They even found a celebrity ambassador recently in the form of Irina Shayk, making her first paparazzi appearance post–Bradley Cooper breakup in a military style from Burberry: the perfect look for parachuting her way into singlehood.
Fashion has long prized show over utility, tossing aside practicality in favor of art and fancy. But the needle is moving: Thanks to street style and Instagram, reality is now the runway. In an age held in thrall to ideals of multitasking and efficiency, where celebrities are papped running errands “just like us,” the boilersuit—optimization on a hanger—is arguably the power suit du jour. It’s the ultimate triumph of fashion-as-life-hack.
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Sure, there have lately been the welcome rumblings of a backlash against the if-you-can-do-it-all-you-can-have-it-all algorithm, a recipe (myth? con?) for general despair and a free-floating sense of failure. Women are pushing back against the idea that we are not only supposed to meet every challenge, we are supposed to do it with grace, without the unsexy discomfort of effort. While that may be an impossible standard, the boilersuit is, at least, not going to get in the way of whatever’s on your to-do list. It’s a versatile workhorse, presumably ready to jump on a call, pick up a child from a playdate, head to yoga, and make grain-free granola—or just lie on the couch. And if you can’t do it all, at least your wardrobe can.
