Handbags, high heels, g‑strings and even the colour pink are now seen as quintessentially feminine, but the truth is far more mischievous. In fact, each of these eight very feminine staples was originally devised for men, only to later swap sides in the great fashion gender‑brawl. Below we dive into the quirky origins, the unexpected twists, and the reasons why these items finally found a home in women’s wardrobes.
8 Very Feminine Origins
Mark Twain, the legendary author better known for “Tom Sawyer,” wasn’t a fan of the old‑fashioned suspenders that held up trousers. He found those shoulder‑straps uncomfortable and set out to create a smoother solution. The result was the hook‑and‑eye fastener – a tiny metal clasp that could be attached and detached with ease.
This modest hook‑and‑eye was originally meant to secure men’s breeches and shirts to the waist, essentially doing the job we now assign to belts. While most men never got to use it, women quickly adopted the same mechanism for a completely different purpose: fastening the back of a brassiere. Those minuscule metal hooks you see on a bra today are, in fact, the very same invention that Twain patented for men’s garments.
Twain secured a patent for his “improvement in adjustable and detachable straps for garments” on December 19, 1871. The device first appeared in shirts, underwear and even corsets before finding a permanent home in women’s lingerie, where it remains a staple to this day.
7 High Heels
High heels might scream femininity now, but they were originally a masculine invention. The earliest heels were crafted for Persian cavalry in the 10th century, giving soldiers a better grip in their stirrups and improving balance while charging or firing arrows from horseback.
By the 17th century, the heel had crossed into Europe, where aristocratic men embraced it to add height and an air of intimidation. King Louis XIV famously handed out heeled shoes to his male courtiers in 1673, turning the heel into a status symbol among the elite.
Women entered the scene a few decades later, drawn by the heel’s ability to make their feet appear smaller beneath long skirts. The elevated sole lifted the back of the foot, hiding it under the hem and showcasing only a dainty front, which suited the era’s fashion ideals.
Over time, a clear split emerged: women refined their heels into slender, pointed designs, while men kept the broader, blockier version. By the 18th century, the high heel had become so closely linked with femininity that men abandoned it altogether.
Thus, an accessory once forged for battle and bravado transformed into a hallmark of elegance, proving that fashion’s gender lines are anything but permanent.
6 Handbags
Before pockets became commonplace, people relied on small pouches or bags to carry coins, keys, and other essentials. These early containers were often fastened to a belt around the waist, serving as the first mobile storage solution.
In the 16th century, women swapped these simple pouches for decorative metal chains called chatelaines, which allowed them to hang tools and trinkets beneath their skirts. By the 18th century, the chatelaines gave way to reticules – tiny draw‑string bags that could be slipped into a hand, giving rise to the modern handbag.
The early 1900s saw the term “handbag” coined from the very hand‑held bags men used to tote their personal items. Fashion designers borrowed the male silhouette, adding compartments and fasteners to create the functional yet chic purses we recognize today. Eventually, the male version faded, leaving the feminine handbag as the dominant form.
5 Thongs
The thong, a minimalist style of underwear or swimwear, consists of a narrow strip of fabric that connects the front and back, leaving the buttocks exposed. Women favor it for its ability to eliminate visible panty lines, while the g‑string variant uses even thinner strings.
Archaeological evidence shows that thong‑like garments appeared in Africa as early as 42,000 BC, later surfacing in ancient Egypt, Greece, Crete (around 1570 BC) and Japan (circa 250 AD). In those early societies, the garments were primarily worn by men, covering the private areas while leaving the rear uncovered.
After falling out of favor, the thong resurfaced in the 1800s as the jockstrap, a protective undergarment for male athletes. Its modern incarnation debuted at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia required nude dancers to wear something modest yet revealing. The performers chose thongs, sparking the style’s resurgence in popular culture.
4 Disposable Menstrual Pads
Reusable menstrual pads were virtually nonexistent until World I, when a team of Kimberly‑Clark executives stumbled upon a new pulp‑and‑paper material called cellucotton during a European tour. This absorbent fiber could hold five times its weight in liquid and cost half as much as cotton.
Initially, Kimberly‑Clark saw no commercial use for cellucotton, but the war effort changed that. The material was mass‑produced for field dressings, helping treat wounded soldiers. Female nurses quickly realized its superior absorbency for menstrual flow and began using it for that purpose.
After the war, demand for medical dressings waned, and in 1920 the company rebranded cellucotton as Kotex – short for “cotton texture” – launching the first disposable menstrual pad. Poor sales later prompted a pivot, and the same absorbent paper became Kleenex, the iconic facial tissue introduced in 1924.
One striking wartime photograph even shows a German soldier using a cellucotton pad as a makeshift face mask, underscoring the material’s versatility before it became a household name.
3 Stockings
Stockings, also known as hoses, are close‑fitting garments that cover the foot and part of the leg. Historically, men wore them as early as the 9th century, with the upper classes sporting colorful or white stockings and the lower classes opting for black.
The transition from masculine to feminine began between the 16th and 20th centuries, a period sometimes dubbed “The Dark Ages of Tights.” Over time, stockings became increasingly associated with women’s fashion, especially after the invention of pantyhose, which combined stockings with a brief.
By the 19th century, the association was so strong that men largely abandoned stockings, leaving them as a staple of women’s wardrobes. The shift illustrates how a piece of clothing can travel across gender lines over centuries.
2 Skinny Jeans
The story of skinny jeans starts with Jacob Davis, who in 1873 fashioned sturdy trousers from denim after obtaining the material from Levi Strauss. Strauss, a German immigrant who opened a textile shop in San Francisco during the Gold Rush, supplied Davis with the rugged fabric, leading to the first pair of work‑wear jeans.
These early jeans were marketed to male miners and laborers, prized for their durability. The partnership between Davis and Strauss secured a patent, and Levi Strauss & Co. began mass‑producing the iconic denim trousers.
It wasn’t until 1930 that the company launched Lady Levi’s® Lot 701, the first pair of jeans designed specifically for women. These early women’s jeans featured a higher waist and a slimmer cut, and over the following decades the silhouette grew progressively tighter, eventually evolving into today’s ultra‑skinny style.
1 Everything Pink
A century ago, the gender‑color code was the opposite of what we see today: boys donned pink, while girls favored blue. This reversal stemmed from the early 1900s, when baby clothing first began to appear in colors other than the ubiquitous white.
White was preferred because it could be bleached easily, and both sexes often wore dresses for practicality. When colored garments entered the market, no hue was initially linked to a specific gender. By the time World War I rolled around, cultural conventions had settled on pink for boys – seen as a strong, masculine shade – and blue for girls, regarded as delicate and pretty.
After the war, boys gradually abandoned pink dresses for shirts and shorts, yet the color association lingered. The real flip occurred in the 1960s, when feminist movements encouraged mothers to clothe their daughters in pink as a form of empowerment, countering the notion that pink made girls too effeminate.
Meanwhile, boys slowly transitioned away from pink toward blue. By 1985, the garment industry cemented the modern color code, aggressively marketing pink to girls and blue to boys, not out of egalitarian concern but to spur fresh purchases and keep the fashion cycle turning.