The house of Redfern, established by John Redfern in Cowes, Isle of Wight and later London and Paris, pioneered the tailored women's suit from the 1870s onward, producing garments that allowed women to dress in a structured, professional manner with significantly reduced corsetry. Redfern's clients included Queen Victoria and Princess Alexandra, and his tailored suits were adopted by women who worked in the emerging professional classes. The business suit's adoption by women was an early form of dress reform that worked within the system of structured clothing rather than against it.

The professional woman in a tailored suit — symbolising intellectual ambition and economic independence — became a recurring figure in the New Woman fiction and poetry of the 1880s and 1890s. Writers like George Gissing and Thomas Hardy depicted such women in their novels, and female poets of the period increasingly presented themselves in professional dress rather than elaborate corset-dependent fashion. The tailored suit represented a middle path between the corseted feminine ideal and the radical reform dress of the Rational Dress Society.