The right trousers

Once frowned upon, now a staple of the female wardrobe, trousers have come a long way. Emma Hughes charts the journey of this favourite garment

- Emma Hughes

OF course, Bianca Jagger was one of many,’ says Edward Sexton with a smile. ‘There was Twiggy and Cilla Black, Linda McCartney, Jean Muir—I dressed her personally…’

The tailor to the stars, now 78, famously created the suit that Mick Jagger wore for his St Tropez wedding in 1971. But he’s also a legend when it comes to women’s suiting and, although the bride wasn’t wearing one of his designs on that particular occasion (her jacket and skirt were YSL), there’s a double-breasted white silk suit of hers in the Sexton archive that might just be— whisper it—even more iconic.

‘Bianca was obviously a very cool, laidback woman and she loved the looks of the 1930s and 1940s,’ Mr Sexton remembers. ‘When we work with a client, we take their personality and lifestyle into consideration; it was a collaboration.’ He talks me through the suit, which is made up of a ‘shortish jacket with no vents and a very generous lapel’ (a Sexton signature) and very full trousers with a high rise he calls ‘Oxford bags’. The effect, as he puts it, is ‘a story you’re telling’. ‘Women are curvaceous, which is one of the wonderful things about dressing them,’ he explains. ‘You can create these incredible lines.’