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About
1760 most men begin wearing breeches, a tight garment worn from
the waist to the knee with stockings covering the rest of the
leg, "Britches" was an informal word for breeches.
Prior to this men were wearing various form if skirts and dresses
(but that's another story).
Pantaloons
(where we get the word pants) were made popular in 1812 by George
Bryan "Beau" Brummell who wore his with a foot strap
(like modern ski pants) to keep the pants tight and avoid creases.
Brummell, buddy to the future Hind George IV, developed a dress
code that anyone, not just royalty, could follow. He dispensed
fashion tips and stressed cleanliness (a novel idea for the
time).
Pantaloon
first appeared as an English word in the 1600's and from the
Italian comedy character Pantaleone who wore the first loose
"clowns pants". Eventually the characters name came
to mean the pants he wore. In England pants still refers only
to underwear.
The
French revolution of 1789 was also a revolt against breeches
as being too upper class. The country peasant trouser look was
in.
Trousers
probably derived from the words trousers-- drawers, trousses--trunk
hose, and/or trousse--to cover, truss. They were looser than
the tight pantaloon were favored for daytime wear while pantaloons
were more evening attire. Trousers were over breeches when horseback
riding to keep the more formal clothes clean.
Sailors
had been wearing the looser fit work trousers since the 1580s
since they allowed them to roll up the legs for wading ashore
or climbing rigging.
In
1846 Sir Harry Lumsden, commanding as English troop in Punjab,
India traded in his bright white trousers for pajama bottoms
to find relief from the heat. To disguise them he colored them
to blend with the local terrain using mazari, a native plant.
Thus the birth of Khaki, the Hindu word for "dust".
As a by product, Lumsden discovered that the new Khaki pants
were more suitable in battle than the white pants, and red tunic.
Blending in was good. Khaki is a color, but is now synonymous
with a military twill pant.
Khaki
went from India to the Kaffir War in South Africa in 1851, and
then after the Sudan Wars and Afghan Campaign of 1878 it was
adopted in 1884 as official uniform. The same year khaki-order
dye was adopted by other armies including America for the
Spanish-America
War in 1898.
Although
not all armies were as willing to give up their brightly colored
uniforms:
"Les
pantaloons rouge, ils sont la France!" - Members of the
French Army
Chinos
were military issue pants which were originally of Chinese made
in China. The British Khakis found their way into China they
were duplicated and sold to American soldiers in the Philippines
for uniforms. Chinos don't have to be twill, but are often a
firm weave of cotton. Chinos can be khaki color. The military
style had no pleats and was tapered at the leg bottom to conserve
fabric. When soldiers returned to civilian life from WWII they
continued to wear their military chinos especially to college.
Reportedly,
Bill's khakis is one of the best pants on the market. And L.
L. Bean stocks jeans to chinos.
Can
we talk about ladies bloomers? They were pants invented by
Elizabeth Smith Miller and consisted of a short skirt with baggy
trousers gathered at the ankles. This masculine article of clothing
appealed to Amelia Jenks Bloomer of Homer, New York who adopted
and popularized the style as kind of rebellion about 1850. They
were embraced by the first women's liberation troops and sports-minded
ladies who rode the bicycle craze of the 1890's.
In
the 1860's knee pants were popular for sorts such as hunting
and golf. They took the form of loose breeches such as "plus
fours" which came four inches below the knee. We still
see on the golf course. They continued popularity through the
1920s and 30s when they became known as knickerbockers after a common
last of the New York Dutch who wore traditional knee pants.
Short
pants were also an English military invention to keep defending
the far flung Empire. Bermuda shorts were won down to the knee
and named after the British island.
Oscar
Wild tried reintroduce breeches in 1890, but the gentleman of
the day were rational in their rejection. The state of mind
held steady until 1925 when a hot summer was the excuse for
Oxford Bags. The measurement of these loose pants at the leg
bottom reached 40 inches!! Invented and embraced by English
Oxford University students, Bags were inspired by the loose
trousers that oarsmen slipped on over their shorts. The extreme
fashion did not last long, but wear with the Zoot Suit in 1938.
Although
not s extreme, another attempt at wide bottoms came when Pierre
Cardin popularized bell bottoms in the 60's as a reaction to
the new narrow shoulder suits. Jeans were also effected and
affected during that time.
Another
word which is interchangeable with pants and trousers is slacks,
which was coined by the Haggar Corporation in the 1940s as a
promotion for their casuals pants, to be worn during your "slack"
time between work and sports.
We
can't talk about pants without a brief history of blue jeans.
Jeans
501 (I mean 101) :
Denim
comes from "serge de Nimes" which was a canvas cloth
first produced in Nimes, France. It's possible that a sails
for Christopher Columbus' ships were made of serge de Nimes.
Jeans is derived from Genoese sailors called "genes"
who first wore pants of canvas. Dungarees is a Hindu word for
course cloth worn by dock workers in Dhunga, India.
But
our story really begins in 1853 when Levi Strauss (born Loeb
Strauss in Bavaria in 1829) moved to San Francisco to sell canvas
cloth for tents and wagon covers to gold miners. He found a
more urgent need for plants that would stand up (no pun) to
the rigors of mining, so he started making pants out of the
brown canvas fabric.
In
1860 indigo dye was first used for denim. Indigo is one of the
oldest dyes and made from fermented leaves of Indigofera plants
which are native to China and India. A synthetic Indigo was
introduced in 1897.
Jacob
Davis invented metal rivets in 1873 and joined with Strauss
to patent their use at stress points on jeans. The crotch rivet
at the base of the fly was finally removed in 1941 after many
years of complaints about heat conductivity. Company president
Walter Haas, Sir was on a camping trip, ventured to covered
in 1937 and removed in 1967. In 1873 the stitched back-pocket
design was introduced, reported inspired by the wings of an eagle.
The
"501"is the lot number assigned to the famous "waist
overall" in 1890. In 1922 belt loops were added to Levis
and H. D Lee introduced the first zipped fly for jeans in 1926.
The red tab was attached to the right rear pocket of Levis in
1936.
James
Dean appeared wearing jeans in the 1955 movie "Rebel Without
a Cause" and American teenagers joined in the rush to rebellion.
Jeans were still going strong in 1968 when Landlubber was one
of the first to market Bell Bottoms.
In
1987 the "ripped and torn" look was endorsed by manufactures
who sold jeans that were already slashed, and 1992 the baggy
look gained popularity, inspired by beltless prison jeans and
the look of prisoners who loose weight in the "big house".
--
Andy Gilchrist,
for A Man's Life
Clothes
Clothes Forum
The Complete Contents of A Man's Life.
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