Just in time for New York Fashion Week: Ladies, you may now legally wear pants in Paris.

Smithsonian:

On January 31, France’s minister of women’s rights made if officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing pants in Paris, the Telegraph reports. Previously, the law required women to ask police for special permission to “dress as men.” If fashionable French ladies ignored this rule, they risked being taken into custody.

The rule originally came into being just after the French Revolution, in the early 19th century. As anyone who watched Les Miserables will recall, rebellious ladies often donned pants in defiance of the bourgeoisie. This anti pants-wearing movement was dubbed sans-culottes, or without the knee-breeches (“cullottes”) of the high class.

Here is our recent interview with Vogue creative director Grace Coddington, who masterminded the scene you see above.

image via littlebigcreative:

Vogue US September 2007 // Photographer: Steven Meisel // Creative Director: Grace Coddington

“I just went about my business and helped people around studios, meanwhile biding my time until it was OK. But it was a bit of an arduous process because every time I had an operation, they had to wait and see until it settled down and it was totally healed to see whether it was healed correctly, and that I could just go on from there. And a couple of times it didn’t heal correctly, and I had to go back and start again, and they did skin grafting and things, which I must say is quite painful — not so much where they sew the skin, but where they take it from — and then they have to wait and make sure it’s taken, so it’s a long process.”

— Grace Coddington on stopping her modeling career as she healed from a major car accident that disfigured her face

Photo credit: Willie Christie/Courtesy of Random House

I don’t mind to look older. I don’t have this urge that so many people have that they’ve always got to look young all their lives. I think you should be the age you are and enjoy it. And I think there’s lot of people that have plastic surgery who quite honestly looked better before, so that’s just my feeling. But if you want to have it, go ahead and have it, but take a good look before you do because, just maybe, you look absolutely beautiful the way you are.

— Grace Coddington, Vogue magazine’s creative director, on plastic surgery

Tomorrow: Vogue Magazine’s creative director, Grace Coddington.

Photo credit: David Sims