REAL WOMEN WEAR PANTSUITS!

Marlene Dietrich in a (forbidden) pantsuit in the 1930s.

An original who is still remembered on her 115th birthday, Marlene Dietrich — the honorary Grand Dame of Pantsuit Nation — was born in Berlin, Germany on December 29, 1901.  

In 1930, Dietrich wore a tuxedo and top hat in the film “Morocco” and it caused a mass global frenzy, but she kept wearing the pantsuits off-screen, despite the societal scorn. 

Marlene was a trailblazer for many reasons, but in context of the now-infamous 2016 U.S. presidential election, let’s focus on her virulent disdain for the Nazi’s during WWII.  

Marlene turned her back on her beloved motherland to support America’s war efforts to defeat Adolf Hitler.  

Dietrich had strong political convictions and she was not shy about voicing them. It’s been written that she enraged Hitler by denouncing her German citizenship and becoming a US citizen in 1939, and further taunted him by entertaining US troops on the front line with German songs like ‘Lili Marlene’. 

She became one of the first movie stars to raise war bonds, going on to sell more than any of her counterparts, and even extending her USO tours in 1944 and ’45.

Dietrich told an interviewer that members of the Nazi Party asked her to return to Germany, but she made it clear that she stood against them, not with them. 

Sometime in the late 30s, Dietrich and her longtime friend, director, Billy Wilder, set up a fund to help Jews and dissidents escape from Germany.  She donated her salary for 1937’s Knight Without Armor to help refugees.  

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1947 for her wartime efforts, which she considered her proudest achievement.

If she were alive today, it is undeniable that she would spinning Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’ and screaming from the rooftop of her chic, book-strewn Paris apartment building,

“Fuck Trump! I’ve seen this before!” 

“I’m Still With HER, Goddamnit!”

“I AM PANTSUIT NATION!”