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Trousers (British English), slacks, or pants (American English, Canadian English and Australian English) are an item of clothing worn from the waist to anywhere between the knees and the ankles, covering both legs separately (rather than with cloth extending across both legs as in , skirts, and ). Shorts are similar to trousers, but with legs that come down only as far as the knee, but may be considerably shorter depending on the style of the garment. To distinguish them from shorts, trousers may be called "long trousers" in certain contexts such as school uniform, where tailored shorts may be called "short trousers" in the UK.
The oldest known trousers, dating to the period between the thirteenth and the tenth centuries BC, were found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, Xinjiang (Tocharia), in present-day western China.Mayke Wagner; Moa Hallgren-Brekenkamp, Dongliang Xu, Xiaojing Kang, Patrick Wertmann, Carol James, Irina Elkina, Dominic Hosner, Christian Leipeg, Pavel E.Tarasovh, " The invention of twill tapestry points to Central Asia: Archaeological record of multiple textile techniques used to make the woollen outfit of a ca. 3000-year-old horse rider from Turfan, China", Archaeological Research in Asia, Volume 29, March 2022, 100344, .Smith, Kiona N., " The world's oldest pants are a 3,000-year-old engineering marvel", Ars Technica, 4 April 2022. Made of wool, the trousers had straight legs and wide crotches and were likely made for horseback riding. A pair of trouser-like leggings dating back to 3350 and 3105 BC were found in the Austria–Italy border worn by Ötzi. In most of Europe, trousers have been worn since ancient times and throughout the Medieval Europe, becoming the most common form of lower-body clothing for adult males in the modern world. Breeches were worn instead of trousers in early modern Europe by some men in higher classes of society. Distinctive formal trousers are traditionally worn with formal attire and semi-formal Morning dress. Since the mid-twentieth century, trousers have increasingly been worn by women as well.
Jeans, made of denim, are a form of trousers for casual wear widely worn all over the world by people of both genders. Shorts are often preferred in hot weather or for some and also often by children and adolescents. Trousers are worn on the hips or waist and are often held up by buttons, elastic, a belt or suspenders (braces). Unless elastic, and especially for men, trousers usually provide a zippered or buttoned fly. Jeans usually feature side and rear pockets with pocket openings placed slightly below the waist band. It is also possible for trousers to provide cargo pants further down the legs.
Maintenance of fit is more challenging for trousers than for some other garments. Leg-length can be adjusted with a hem, which helps to retain fit during the adolescent and early adulthood growth years. adjustment of girth to accommodate weight gain or weight loss is relatively limited, and otherwise serviceable trousers might need to be replaced after a significant change in body composition. Higher-quality trousers often have extra fabric included in the centre-back seam allowance, so the waist can be let out further.
In North America, Australia and South Africa, pants is the general category term, whereas trousers (sometimes slacks in Australia and North America) often refers more specifically to garments with a waistband, belt-loops, and a fly-front. In these dialects, elastic-waist knitted garments would be called pants, but not trousers (or slacks).
North Americans call undergarments underwear, underpants, undies, or panties (the last are women's garments specifically) to distinguish them from other pants that are worn on the outside. The term Undergarment normally refers to undergarments, but in some dialects, may be found as a synonym for breeches, that is, trousers. In these dialects, the term underdrawers is used for undergarments. Many North Americans refer to their underpants by their type, such as boxer shorts or briefs.
In Australia, men's underwear also has various informal terms including under-dacks, undies, dacks or jocks. In New Zealand, men's underwear is known informally as undies or dacks.
In India, underwear is also referred to as innerwear.
The words trouser (or pant) instead of trousers (or pants) is sometimes used in the tailoring and fashion industries as a generic term, for instance when discussing styles, such as "a flared trouser", rather than as a specific item. The words trousers and pants are pluralia tantum, nouns that generally only appear in plural form—much like the words scissors and tongs, and as such pair of trousers is the usual correct form. However, the singular form is used in some compound words, such as trouser-leg, trouser-press and trouser-bottoms.
Jeans are trousers typically made from denim or dungaree cloth. In North America skin-tight leggings are commonly referred to as tights.
The ancient Greeks used the term ἀναξυρίδες ( anaxyrides) for the trousers worn by Eastern world nations ἀναξυρίδες, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library and σαράβαρα ( sarabara) for the loose trousers worn by the Scythians. σαράβαρα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library However, they did not wear trousers since they thought them ridiculous,Euripides, Cyclops, 182Aristophanes, Wasps, 1087 using the word θύλακοι ( thulakoi), pl. of θύλακος ( thulakos) 'sack', as a slang term for the loose trousers of Persians and other . θύλακος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
Republican Rome viewed the Himation of Ancient Greece and Minoan (Crete) culture as an emblem of civilization and disdained trousers as the mark of barbarians.Lever, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. Thames and Hudson, 1995, 2010. p. 50. As the Roman Empire expanded beyond the Mediterranean basin, however, the greater warmth provided by trousers led to their adoption.Payne, Blanche (1965). History of Costume. Harper & Row. p. 97 Two types of trousers eventually saw widespread use in Rome: the Femoralia, which fit snugly and usually fell to knee length or mid-calf length, "Feminalia.", The Fashion Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10 October 2010. 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.Lever, James (1995, 2010). Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. Thames and Hudson. p. 40.
Although Charlemagne (742–814) is recorded to have habitually worn trousers, donning the Byzantine tunic only for ceremonial occasions,Einhard. The Life of Charlemagne. University of Michigan Press, 1960.Lever, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. Thames and Hudson, 1995, 2010. pp. 50–51. 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 Payne, Blanche. History of Costume. Harper & Row, 1965. p. 180 (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 drawersLever, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. Thames and Hudson, 1995, 2010. p. 58. until they were dispensed with altogether by the most fashionable elites who joined their skin-tight hose back into trousers.Payne, Blanche. History of Costume. Harper & Row, 1965. p. 207 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,Payne, Blanche. History of Costume. Harper & Row, 1965. p. 200 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.
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) Italian Culture in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, ed. Michele Marrapodi 2007 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:
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 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 era by wearing trousers for their work at the local . 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.
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.
In Malawi women were not legally allowed to wear trousers under President Kamuzu Banda's rule until 1994.Sarah DeCapua, Malawi in Pictures, 2009, pg 7. 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.
In 2013, Turkey's parliament ended a ban on women lawmakers wearing trousers in its assembly.
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.
In 2014, an Indian family court in Mumbai ruled that a husband objecting to his wife wearing a kurta and jeans and forcing her to wear a sari amounts to cruelty inflicted by the husband and can be a ground to seek divorce. 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.
Until 2016 some female crew members on British Airways were required to wear British Airways' standard "ambassador" uniform, which has not traditionally included trousers.
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.
Trousers have varied historically in whether or not they have a fly. Originally, hose did not cover the area between the legs. This was instead covered by a doublet or by a codpiece. When breeches were worn, during the Regency period for example, they were fall-fronted (or broad fall). Later, after trousers (pantaloons) were invented, the fly-front (split fall) emerged.Croonborg, Frederick: The Blue Book of Men's Tailoring. Croonborg Sartorial Co. New York and Chicago, 1907. p. 123 The panelled front returned as a sporting option, such as in riding breeches, but is now hardly ever used, a fly being by far the most common fastening. Most flies now use a zipper, though button-fly pants continue to be available.
Among certain groups, low-rise, baggy trousers exposing underwear became ; for example, among Skateboarding and in 1990s hip hop fashion. This fashion is called sagging or, alternatively, "busting slack".
Cut-offs are homemade shorts made by cutting the legs off trousers, usually after holes have been worn in fabric around the knees. This extends the useful life of the trousers. The remaining leg fabric may be hemmed or left to fray after being cut.
The Catholic Church Pope Nicholas I approved of both men and women wearing pants. In 866, he wrote in response to the Bulgar Kahn St Boris the Baptiser, "For whether you or your women wear or do not wear pants neither impedes your salvation nor leads to any increase of your virtue." He then proceeded to expound the virtue of wearing the "spiritual pants" in the form of a temperate life while restraining disordered passions.
In February 2005, Virginia legislators tried to pass a similar law that would have made punishable by a $50 fine "any person who, while in a public place, intentionally wears and displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person's intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner". (It is not clear whether, with the same coverage by the trousers, exposing underwear was considered worse than exposing bare skin, or whether the latter was already covered by another law.) The law passed in the Virginia House of Delegates. However, various criticisms to it arose. For example, newspaper columnists and radio talk show hosts consistently said that since most people that would be penalized under the law would be young African-American men, the law would thus be a form of racial discrimination. Virginia's state senators voted against passing the law.
In California, Government Code Section 12947.5 (part of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA)) expressly protects the right to wear pants. Thus, the standard California FEHA discrimination complaint form includes an option for "denied the right to wear pants".
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