Hillary Clinton decided to start wearing the pantsuits that became her political trademark after “suggestive” photos taken of her during a visit to Brazil were used in a lingerie ad in the mid-1990s, she has revealed.

The former US secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate told CBS News in an interview that aired on Sunday that the choice came after a 1995 trip to Brazil she took with her husband, Bill Clinton, then in the first of two terms as president.

A photo of Clinton showed a glimpse of her underwear while seated. The Brazilian lingerie company DuLoren deployed the image in an ad containing the words: “A tribute to one of the most important women of the decade.”

DuLoren’s vice-president at the time insisted the advertisement “was meant as a compliment” to Clinton, but the company pulled the ad from circulation after an American embassy in Brazil complained.

“I was sitting on a couch, and the press was let in – there were a bunch of them shooting up,” Clinton said, recalling the episode. “All of a sudden the White House gets alerted to these billboards that show me sitting down with I thought my legs together, but the way it’s shot, it’s sort of suggestive.”

Clinton continued: “And then I also began to have the experience of having photographers all the time – I’d be on a stage, I’d be climbing stairs, and they’d be below me. I just couldn’t deal with it, so I started wearing pants.”

Her daughter, Chelsea, who was seated next to her in the interview, at one point remarked: “So creepy.”

Clinton followed up her time as the country’s first lady by representing New York in the US Senate from 2001 to 2009 before spending the next four years as secretary of state for the Barack Obama White House.

She won the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, and her supporters during that race rallied around the social media hashtag “Pantsuit Nation”, paying tribute to her attire of choice while conducting political business. Many of those who voted in that election also wore pantsuits to the polls to tacitly signal their support for her, though she ultimately lost to her Republican rival Donald Trump.

Clinton is promoting an Apple TV+ docuseries she made with Chelsea called Gutsy, which profiles brave and trailblazing women.

The former secretary of state was asked in Sunday’s interview to define what a gutsy woman is.

“I think a gutsy woman is … determined to make the most of her own life but also to try to use whatever skills, talents, persistence that she has to bring others along,” Clinton said.