Richard, my brilliant website designer, didn’t know what culottes were when he was building our website, so I’d better explain: they’re a cross between a skirt and a pair of trousers.
They first appeared for women in the early part of the twentieth century, and were associated with conversations about women’s mobility and role in society. They were later associated with suffragettes, a link that was made in a 1911 Vogue article, “The Distracting Jupe-Culotte,” in which Madeleine Pelletier, a doctor and first-wave feminist was quoted as saying: “Struggling for the liberty of my sex, I am the enemy of all that oppresses.... Liberty of movement is conducive to liberty of thought.... All women really desirous of freedom will adopt the new fashion with enthusiasm.”
There’s more Culottes History from writer Laird Borrelli Persson at Vogue.
I don’t think that any of us would now think we were making a political statement by wearing culottes, but they remain practical and comfortable, and we have some customers who have bought lots of pairs so they can wear them all the time.