an wearing trousers. First to third century AD
Prehistory There is some evidence, from
figurative art, of trousers being worn in the
Upper Paleolithic, as seen on the figurines found at the Siberian sites of
Mal'ta and Buret'. Fabrics and technology for their construction are fragile and disintegrate easily, so often are not among artefacts discovered in archaeological sites. The oldest known trousers were found at the Yanghai cemetery, extracted from mummies in
Turpan,
Xinjiang, western China, belonging to the people of the
Tarim Basin; and with the appearance of horse-riding
Eurasian nomads in Greek ethnography. At this time,
Iranian peoples such as
Scythians,
Sarmatians,
Sogdians and
Bactrians among others, along with
Armenians and
Eastern and
Central Asian peoples such as the
Xiongnu/
Hunnu, are known to have worn trousers. Trousers are believed to have been worn by people of any gender among these early users. The
ancient Greeks used the term ἀναξυρίδες (
anaxyrides) for the trousers worn by
Eastern nations and σαράβαρα (
sarabara) for the loose trousers worn by the Scythians. However, they did not wear trousers since they thought them ridiculous, using the word θύλακοι (
thulakoi), pl. of θύλακος (
thulakos) 'sack', as a slang term for the loose trousers of
Persians and other
Middle Easterners. Republican
Rome viewed the
draped clothing of
Greek and
Minoan (
Cretan) culture as an emblem of civilization and disdained trousers as the mark of barbarians. As the Roman Empire expanded beyond the
Mediterranean basin, however, the greater warmth provided by trousers led to their adoption. Two types of trousers eventually saw widespread use in Rome: the
feminalia, which fit snugly and usually fell to knee length or mid-calf length, and the
braccae, loose-fitting trousers that were closed at the ankles. Both garments were adopted originally from the
Celts of Europe, although later familiarity with the Persian
Near East and the
Germanic peoples increased acceptance.
Feminalia and
braccae both began use as military garments, spreading to civilian dress later, and were eventually made in a variety of materials, including leather, wool, cotton and silk.
Medieval Europe Trousers of various designs were worn throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, especially by men. Loose-fitting trousers were worn in
Byzantium under long
tunics, and were worn by many tribes, such as the Germanic tribes that migrated to the Western Roman Empire in
Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages, as evidenced by both artistic sources and such relics as the fourth-century costumes recovered from the
Thorsberg peat bog (see illustration). Trousers in this period, generally called
braies, varied in length and were often closed at the cuff or even had attached foot coverings, although open-legged pants were also seen. By the eighth century there is evidence of the wearing in Europe of two layers of trousers, especially among upper-class males. The under layer is today referred to by costume historians as ''
, although that usage did not emerge until the late sixteenth century. Over the drawers were worn trousers of wool or linen, which in the tenth century began to be referred to as breeches'' in many places. Tightness of fit and length of leg varied by period, class, and geography. (Open legged trousers can be seen on the
Norman soldiers of the
Bayeux Tapestry.) Although
Charlemagne (742–814) is recorded to have habitually worn trousers, donning the Byzantine tunic only for ceremonial occasions, the influence of the Roman past and the example of Byzantium led to the increasing use of long tunics by men, hiding most of the trousers from view and eventually rendering them an undergarment for many. As undergarments, these trousers became briefer or longer as the length of the various medieval outer garments changed, and were met by, and usually attached to, another garment variously called
hose or
stockings. In the fourteenth century it became common among the men of the noble and knightly classes to connect the hose directly to their
pourpoints (the padded under jacket worn with armoured breastplates that would later evolve into the
doublet) rather than to their drawers. In the fifteenth century, rising hemlines led to ever briefer drawers until they were dispensed with altogether by the most fashionable elites who joined their skin-tight hose back into trousers. These trousers, which we would today call tights but which were still called hose or sometimes joined hose at the time, emerged late in the fifteenth century and were conspicuous by their open crotch which was covered by an independently fastening front panel, the
codpiece. The exposure of the hose to the waist was consistent with fifteenth-century trends, which also brought the pourpoint/doublet and the
shirt, previously undergarments, into view, but the most revealing of these fashions were only ever adopted at court and not by the general population. Men's clothes in Hungary in the fifteenth century consisted of a shirt and trousers as underwear, and a
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.
Europe before the 20th century Around the turn of the sixteenth century it became conventional to separate hose into two pieces, one from the waist to the crotch which fastened around the top of the legs, called trunk hose, and the other running beneath it to the foot. The trunk hose soon reached down the thigh to fasten below the knee and were now usually called "
breeches" to distinguish them from the lower-leg coverings still called
hose or, sometimes
stockings. By the end of the sixteenth century, the codpiece had also been incorporated into breeches which featured a
fly or
fall front opening. As a modernization measure, Tsar
Peter the Great of Russia issued a decree in 1701 commanding every Russian man, other than clergy and peasant farmers, to wear trousers. During the
French Revolution of 1789 and following, many male citizens of France adopted a working-class costume including ankle-length trousers, or pantaloons (named from a
Commedia dell'Arte character named
Pantalone) in place of the aristocratic knee-breeches (
culottes). (Compare
sans-culottes.) The new garment of the revolutionaries differed from that of the
ancien regime upper classes in three ways: • it was loose where the style for breeches had most recently been form-fitting • it was ankle length where breeches had generally been knee-length for more than two centuries • they were open at the bottom while breeches were fastened Pantaloons became fashionable in early nineteenth-century England and the
Regency era. The style was introduced by
Beau Brummell (1778–1840) and by mid-century had supplanted breeches as fashionable street-wear. At this point, even knee-length pants adopted the open bottoms of trousers (see
shorts) and were worn by young boys, for sports, and in tropical climates. Breeches proper have survived into the twenty-first century as
court dress, and also in baggy mid-
calf (or three-quarter length) versions known as
plus-fours or
knickers worn for active sports and by young schoolboys. Types of breeches are also still worn today by fencers,
baseball and
American football players, and by equestrians. Sailors may have played a role in the worldwide dissemination of trousers as a fashion. In the seventeenth and eighteenth 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 nineteenth century in the
American West because of their ruggedness and durability. Starting around the mid-nineteenth century,
Wigan pit-brow women 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 waists to keep them out of the way. Although
pit-brow lasses 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.
Medieval Korea The Korean word for trousers,
baji (originally
pajibaji) first appears in recorded history around the turn of the fifteenth century, but pants may have been in use by Korean society for some time. From at least this time pants were worn by both sexes in Korea. Men wore trousers either as outer garments or beneath skirts, while it was unusual for adult women to wear their pants (termed
sokgot) without a covering skirt. As in Europe, a wide variety of styles came to define regions, time periods and age and gender groups, from the unlined
gouei to the padded
sombaji.
Women wearing trousers See also: the
Laws section below. wearing trousers and carrying a shield with an attached patterned cloth and a quiver.
Ancient Greek Attic white-ground
alabastron, ,
British Museum, London In Western society, it was Eastern culture that inspired French designer
Paul Poiret (1879–1944) to be one of the first to design pants for women. In 1913, Poiret created loose-fitting, wide-leg trousers for women called harem pants, which were based on the costumes of the popular ballet
Sheherazade. Written by Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888, Sheherazade was based on a collection of legends from the Middle East called 1001 Arabian Nights. In the early twentieth century, women air pilots and other working women often wore trousers. Frequent photographs from the 1930s of actresses
Marlene Dietrich and
Katharine Hepburn in trousers helped make trousers acceptable for women. During
World War II, women employed in factories or doing other "men's work" on war service wore trousers when the job demanded it. In the post-war era, trousers became acceptable casual wear for gardening, the beach, and other leisure pursuits. In Britain during World War II the rationing of clothing prompted women to wear their husbands' civilian clothes, including trousers, to work while the men were serving in the armed forces. This was partly because they were seen as practical for work, but also so that women could keep their clothing allowance for other uses. As this practice of wearing trousers became more widespread and as the men's clothing wore out, replacements were needed. By the summer of 1944, it was reported that sales of women's trousers were five times more than the previous year. In 1919,
Luisa Capetillo challenged mainstream society by becoming the first woman in Puerto Rico to wear trousers in public. Capetillo was sent to jail for what was considered to be a crime, but the charges were later dropped. 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 erosion of social prohibitions against girls and women wearing trousers in schools, the workplace and in fine restaurants. In 1969, Rep.
Charlotte Reid (R-Ill.) became the first woman to wear trousers in the
US Congress.
Pat Nixon was the first American
First Lady to wear trousers in public. In 1989, California state senator
Rebecca Morgan became the first woman to wear trousers in a US state senate.
Hillary Clinton was the first woman to wear trousers in an official American First Lady portrait. Women were not allowed to wear trousers on the US Senate floor until 1993. In 1993, Senators
Barbara Mikulski and
Carol Moseley Braun wore trousers onto the floor in defiance of the rule, and female support staff followed soon after; the rule was amended later that year by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms
Martha Pope to allow women to wear trousers on the floor so long as they also wore a jacket. This law was introduced in 1965. Since 2004 the
International Skating Union has allowed women to wear trousers instead of skirts in ice-skating competitions. In 2009, journalist
Lubna Hussein was fined the equivalent of $200 when a court found her guilty of violating Sudan's decency laws by wearing trousers. In 2012 the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police began to allow women to wear trousers and boots with all their formal uniforms. In 2012 and 2013, some
Mormon women participated in "Wear Pants to Church Day", in which they wore trousers to church instead of the customary dresses to encourage gender equality within
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More than one thousand women participated in 2012. Also in 2013, an old bylaw requiring women in Paris, France to ask permission from city authorities before "dressing as men", including wearing trousers (with exceptions for those "holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse") was declared officially revoked by France's Women's Rights Minister,
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem. The bylaw was originally intended to prevent women from wearing the pantalons fashionable with Parisian rebels in the
French Revolution. The wife was thus granted a divorce on the ground of cruelty as defined under section 27(1)(d) of the Special Marriage Act, 1954. In 2017,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that its female employees could wear "professional pantsuits and dress slacks" while at work; dresses and skirts had previously been required. In 2018 it was announced that female missionaries of that church could wear dress slacks except when attending the temple and during Sunday worship services, baptismal services, and mission leadership and zone conferences. In 2019,
Virgin Atlantic began to allow its female flight attendants to wear trousers. ==Parts of trousers==