Saturday,Oct 31 2009, 03:37:48 AMThe History Of Trousers

This artical has been pulished on http://www.voguejeans.com/blog/?p=7.

Trousers are an item of clothing worn on the lower part of the body from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately (rather than with true religion jeans stretching across both, as in skirts and dresses). English speakers in areas such as Canada, South Africa and the United States often refer to such items of clothing as pants. Additional synonyms include slacks, kegs or kex, breeches (sometimes pronounced /ˈbrɪTʃɨZ/) or breeks. Historically, as for the West, trousers have been the standard lower-body clothing item for males since the 16th century; by the late 20th century, they had become prevalent for females as well. Trousers are worn at the hips or waist, and may be held up by their own fastenings, a belt, or suspenders (braces). Leggings form-fitting trousers of a clingy material, often knitted cotton and lycra.

In ancient China only soldiers wore trousers.

Men’s cheap true religion jeans in Hungary in the 15th century consisted of a shirt and trousers as underwear, and dolman worn over them, as well as a short fur-lined or sheepskin coat. Hungarians generally wore simple trousers, only their colour being unusual; the dolman covered the greater part of the trousers.

Trousers appeared in Western European culture at several points in history, but gained their current predominance only in the 16th century, from a Commedia dell’Arte character named Pantalone (the Italian language word for “Trousers”). In England in the twelfth century, the rustic often wore long garments to the ankle, rather like trousers, which are really glorified braies. Trouser like discount true religion jeans, which became rare again in the thirteenth century, vanished during the fourteenth century and scarcely reappeared for six hundred years. The word itself is of Gaelic or Scots Gaelic origin, from the Middle Irish word “triubhas” (close-fitting shorts), however note that trews (a form of, origiinally, tight-fitting leggings, a traditional or derived Scottish garment) were, in fact, not trousers.

Trousers trace their ancestry to the individual hose worn by men in the 15th century (which explains why the word “trousers” is plural). The hose was easy to make and fastened to a doublet at the top with ties called “points.” At this time, these were not trousers, but true religion jeans on sale, such as can be seen in the 1746 painting by David Morier. As time went by, the two hose were joined, first in the back then across the front, but still leaving a large opening for sanitary functions. Originally, doublets came almost to the knees, effectively covering the private parts, but as fashions changed and doublets became shorter, it became necessary for men to cover their genitals with a codpiece.

By the end of the 16th century, the codpiece had been incorporated into the hose, now usually called “breeches,” which roughly knee-length and featured a fly or fall front opening.

During the French Revolution, the male citizens of France adopted a working-class costume including ankle-length trousers or pantaloons (in place of the aristocratic knee-breeches). This styled was introduced to England in the early 19th century, possibly[original research?] By Beau Brummell, and supplanted breeches as fashionable street wear by mid-century. Breeches survived into the 1940s as the plus-fours or knickers worn for active sports and by young school-boys. Types of breeches are still worn today by baseball and American football players.

Sailors may have played a role in the dissemination of trousers as a fashion around the world. In the 17th and 18th centuries, sailors wore baggy trousers known as galligaskins. Sailors also pioneered the wearing of jeans—trousers made of denim. These became more popular in the late 19th century in the American West because of their ruggedness and durability.

From the late 19th Century until the 1940s, men’s flannel trousers (known as “slacks”) had no waist sizes; there was one universal fit for all men (leg lengths were issued, but alterations were a result of turn-ups). These were held up on a very high waist above the stomach, partly by belts but mainly by braces; as a result, the trousers were very baggy.

Although trousers for women in western countries did not become fashion items until the later 20th century, women began wearing men’s trousers (suitably altered) for outdoor work a hundred years earlier.

Starting around the mid 19th Century, Wigan pit brow girls scandalized Victorian society by wearing trousers for their work at the local coal mines. They wore skirts over their trousers and rolled them up to their waist to keep them out of the way. Although pit brow lassies worked above-ground at the pit-head, their task of sorting and shovelling coal involved hard manual labour, so wearing the usual long skirts of the time would have greatly hindered their movements.

Women working the ranches of the 19th century American West also wore trousers for riding, and in the early 20th century aviatrices and other working women often wore trousers. Frequent photographs from the 1930s of actors Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn in trousers helped make trousers acceptable for women. During World War II, women working in factories and doing other forms of “men’s work” on war service wore trousers when the work demanded it, and in the post-war era trousers became acceptable casual wear for gardening, the beach, and other leisure pursuits.

In Britain during the Second World War, because of the rationing of clothing, many women took to wear they’re husbands’ civilian clothes, including their trousers, to work while their husbands served away from home in the armed forces. This was partly because they were seen as practical garments of workwear, and partly to allow women to keep their clothing allowance for other uses. As this practice of wearing trousers became more widespread and as the men’s clothes wore out, replacements were needed, so that by the summer of 1944 it was reported that sales of women’s trousers were five times more than in the previous year.

In the 1960s, André Courrèges introduced long trousers for women as a fashion item, leading to the era of the pantsuit and designer jeans and the gradual eroding of social prohibitions against girls and women wearing trousers in schools, the workplace, and fine restaurants.

22 Views | 1 Comments | Share with Friends | Recommend