Vintage Trouser History, A Tale of Two Hoses

The First Trousers

It is said that the Achaemid Persians, the Iranian Scynthians, the Sacae were the first to develop and wear what we would today recognise as trousers.

Trouser like clothing did appear as early as the 1300s in early British society, as “braies”- a kind of undergarment. It wasn’t until around the 1600s in Hungary that true “trousers (i.e. an outer-garment) appeared, although they didn’t become culturally engrained in western society until the 1700s with the inception of a cartoon character named Pantalone.

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The Origin of the Word “Trousers”

The word “trousers” actually comes from a Gaelic (Irish or Scottish) word, “triubhas” which were a kind of close fitting shorts.

Why are “Trousers” Pluralised?

Trousers can trace their history back to the a time (around 1500 A.D.) where a pair of individual “hoses” were worn, one on each leg, starting the reference to this type of clothing as being plural which has carried on into the modern word “trousers”.

At this time, the hoses were called “trews” which were undergarments. By the 1600s, the “codpiece” (covering the groin) was integrated into the trews and the “breeches” cam into being as knee length with an “fly” type flap for hygiene purposes.

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Sailor Fashionistas

It is perhaps sailors that are responsible for bringing full-length trousers into popular fashion. They wore a baggy kind of trouser called a “galligaskin” and also an early kind of denim jeans both of which entered popular culture at some point during the 1800s and 1900s.

The Architecture of Trousers

The modern formal trouser comprises of five distinct areas consistent with most styles and cuts; the trouser legs, belt loops, pocket, pleat, fly and cuffs (bottom of the leg).

Mens Trousers

Men have worn trousers almost exclusively as covering for the lower body since the early 1600s with the exception of shorts, the Scottish “kilt”, the religious “cassock” and a number of other lesser known styles of clothing. Before this point, men usually wore clothing more akin to skirts and dresses.

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Womens Trousers

It was not really until the 1800s and 1900s that trousers became widely fashionable for women, when versions of men’s trousers were worn by women for outdoor work.

This was particularly true in the coal mines of Victorian England when women in a Wigan coal mine caused a scandal by wearing trousers to perform their mining duties.

In short, it was far more practical to wear trousers than movement restricting skirts for their coal shovelling duties, so they wore trouser and rolled the skirt up to keep it out of the way.

The image of women wearing trousers really took off in western culture in the 1800s with images of American “cow girls” and other western working women.

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