Jeans Aren'T Just Jeans: Umd Professor Explores The History Of Unisex Clothing

Jo B. Paoletti, associate professor of American Studies, explores this phenomenon of '60s and '70s fashion.

By Liam Ferrell, The Shell.

The combination of a cold day and a job fair at the Stamp Student Union provides all the evidence Associate Professor Jo B. Paoletti needs to demonstrate the lingering effect of the 1960s and 1970s on contemporary fashion. Pantsuits, parkas and sweatpants—these are the vestiges of past battles over gender lines and clothing.

They are also fodder for Paoletti’s new book, “Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution,” which explores how a turbulent era played out on runways and in department stores. As activists and celebrities pushed the boundaries of society’s rules, the line of what was considered appropriate style for each began to blur: Women began wearing men’s jeans, men began wearing their hair long enough to be mistaken for women, and the old restrictions on casual style fell away.

“That whole period where everything goes unisex … is saying something larger about the culture of the times,” says Paoletti, who teaches in the Department of American Studies.

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