HE started his writing career in the days of hot metal, but Don Chapman has spent his later years obsessing about hotpants.

Mr Chapman, 84, was a journalist for the Oxford Mail for 35 years until he retired in 1994.

After writing a book about the history of the Oxford Playhouse, the Eynsham resident decided to focus on women's bloomers and his new book Wearing the Trousers has now been published.

The journalist's career as a local writer began at the Mail's offices in New Inn Hall Street in 1959 when hot metal typesetting was still used in the printing process.

As the paper's theatre critic it was only natural that should be asked to write about the history of the Playhouse.

But the task proved more onerous than he first imagined and it was not until 2008 that Oxford Playhouse: High and Low Drama in a University City was published.

Father-of-two Mr Chapman, who lives with wife Sue, 80, a former Oxford Mail photographer, said: "The Playhouse book took longer to complete than I first thought so I didn't start work on Wearing the Trousers properly until about 2010.

"The research started in 1971 when, at the height of the hotpants craze, a reader came to me with his grandfather’s papers relating to the Western Rational Dress Club.

"Next year it's the centenary of women over 30 getting the vote, so it's a great time for this book to be published."

Mr Chapman's study initially focuses on the 1850s when a startling new craze swept through the wardrobes of the women of British and American society.

Bloomers represented a reaction against the painful fashions of Victorian times which featured corsets and bindings.

The author said in the 1850s that most men considered women in bloomers, which became known as 'rational dress', to be a threat to male authority.

He said: "Commentators at the time and fashion historians since have tended to regard bloomerism as a five-minute wonder, blaming its rapid decline on the notorious Bloomer Ball in Hanover Square, London, in the autumn of 1851 when most of the women who turned up were of questionable character and some of the disappointed males resorted to fisticuffs."

Mr Chapman, who wrote articles for the Oxford Mail's Anthony Wood column, added: "Women continued to wear what became known as rational dress for activities ranging from horticulture to mountaineering.

"Lady Harberton gave the movement fresh impetus in the 1880s with her campaign for what she called divided skirts – not trousers.

"It took the First World War and the 'flappers' of the 1920s to make shorter skirts and women's trousers more acceptable."

The summer of 1897 brought eight members of the Western Rational Dress Club to Oxford for a rally which attracted a large crowd.

Grandfather-of-four Mr Chapman is now planning to write his memoirs, which will feature tales from his time as a writer at the Mail's former offices in New Inn Hall Street, and at its current headquarters in Osney Mead, West Oxford.

A launch event for Wearing the Trousers will take place at the Oxford Playhouse in Beaumont Street at 5pm tomorrow, while Mr Chapman will give a talk to Eynsham History Group in the Church Hall in Thames Street, Eynsham, at 7.30pm next Thursday.

*Wearing the Trousers: Fashion, Freedom and the Rise of the Modern Woman by Don Chapman is published by Amberley, price £16.99.