How did we as a culture get from wearing tunics, robes, gowns, and togas to cargo shorts and
mom jeans?
How did pants go from being a sign of barbarism to being one of the only requirements to eat
at a Waffle House?
And why do we call them pants?
So what was it that led to the invention of pants in the first place?
Tunic- and gown-wearing ancients must have had an overwhelming pile of cultural and practical
reasons to abandon that breezy, free-flowing feeling enjoyed still today by those who wear
dresses, skirts, kilts, and bathrobes in favor of wrapping each leg individually, right?
"Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?"
Well, no.
There was really only one reason for pants, and that reason was horses.
As Science News explains, the oldest known pants come from Central Asia between 3,000
and 3,300 years ago, among nomadic herding cultures who found pants the best option for
riding horses.
The oldest pants so far discovered are from China's Tarim Basin, but pants were also worn
by other nomadic equestrian cultures like the Scythians about 2,500 years ago.
These early pants were straight legged with a wide crotch, sewn together from wool cloth
with slits on the side, a string fastener, and decorative weaving in the legs.
Interestingly, the Tarim Basin pants seem to have been woven to their final size with
no cutting involved in their shaping.
No word on whether the first pants-wearer's mother embarrassed him in front of the entire
nomadic shopping mall by making him come out of the dressing room and turning around to
show how they fit on his butt.
The ancient Greeks were not a pants-wearing people.
They didn't like them.
Instead, they tended to wear long, flowing linen or wool garments that were belted or
pinned in place.
Men usually wore a linen tunic, over which they might wear a wool cloak in the winter.
Women wore tunics pinned at the shoulder.
Greeks hated pants because, as Vintage News explains, they thought they were ridiculous,
but also because they associated them with foreigners.
Pants were what Persians and other cultures wore.
They were the clothes of barbarians, not a civilized Greek.
The Romans, of course, followed the Greek attitude on pants.
The Latin word bracatus, which literally means "wearing pants," was used to refer to people
that Romans thought were foreign, barbarous, and - perhaps ironically given our modern
view of pants - effeminate.
As Atlas Obscura points out, Roman hatred of pants was pretty much just straight up
nonsense, with the circular logic that pants were not sophisticated because sophisticated
people don't wear pants.
When the great Roman orator Cicero wanted to condemn the behavior of the Gauls, he referenced
"their military cloaks and their breeches" as signs of their innate aggression.
However, by the time of the early empire, Roman soldiers were suddenly discovering that
the swishy potato sacks with armholes that worked so well in a Mediterranean climate
weren't up for the job of retaining territory in Germany, Switzerland, Britain, and elsewhere.
Taking cues from their new Gaulish allies, Roman soldiers began wearing pants to protect
their borders - and their thighs - from the Goths.
Before long, this military fashion caught on with civilians as well, and by 397 C.E.
in the waning days of the Roman Empire, brothers and co-emperors Honorius and Arcadius issued
a decree banning civilians from wearing pants in the capital.
In the end, though, bad news for the Romans meant good news for pants: The trousers ban
ended when Alaric and his pants-wearing Visigoth army sacked Rome, more or less making the
fall of the Western Empire in 476 inevitable.
In a complete 180 from the Roman pants ban stands the mandatory pants reform of Peter
I of Russia - better known as Peter the Great - in the 17th century.
Where for the Romans pants were a symbol of barbarism and otherness that needed to be
wiped out, for Peter they were a sign of civilization and modernity that needed to be brought in
at any cost.
Plus, they made dancing easier.
When Peter became sole tsar of Russia in 1696, the country hadn't progressed much in about
six centuries.
The isolationist tsardom was ruled by a wealthy class of nobles called boyars, who, together
with the crazy powerful Orthodox church, maintained their wealth and power thanks to an enormous,
powerless serf class.
The fashion of choice was long robes, long coats, and long beards.
However, Europe of this time was experiencing an explosion of progress in technology and
trade and was soon knocking on Russia's door.
Peter had been raised by a Western-educated mother and had himself traveled through Enlightenment-era
Europe in disguise and soaked in their culture and he was determined to drag Russia kicking
and screaming into the 18th century.
A major element of his modernization efforts was wardrobe reform, which meant robe-wearing
boyars suddenly found themselves forced to wear pants and other Western-style outfits
under penalty of a hefty fine if they tried to enter Moscow.
Peter's reforms met a lot of resistance, but pants won out in the end.
The word "pants" can be pretty funny.
It turns out that comedy is in the very DNA of the word pants, so maybe that's why.
"But these are my recreation clothes.”
You probably already know that the word pants is short for pantaloons, but what you might
not know is that pantaloons is an Anglicization of the Italian word Pantalone.
Pantalone, in turn, was a character in a hugely popular Renaissance-era form of Italian comic
theater.
As Merriam-Webster explains, Pantalone was a "greedy, lecherous, scheming old man who
often ended up being duped and humiliated," and who could be recognized by his costume,
which included a brimless hat, an open black cassock, and long trousers.
When a similar style of pants became popular in Restoration England, they named their new
fashion after the comedy character famous for his pants, like how super-short cutoff
jeans would later be called Daisy Dukes.
While pants is the generic term for a garment worn from waist to ankles while covering each
leg separately in American English, the preferred term for such a garment in British English
is trousers.
The word "trousers" can be traced back to a Gaelic word meaning "close-fitting shorts,"
which by the 1570s could be found in English as trouse and then trouzes a decade later.
The "r" at the end probably got added by the influence of drawers and other words described
as "a pair," like tweezers and pliers.
But even in American English, where it's not the generic term, trousers can be heard in
certain contexts.
Specifically, trousers is used to mean a tailored pair of pants with a waist band, belt loops,
and a fly front.
"Why are you wearing trousers?"
Slacks, meanwhile, indicate less formal, untailored, usually off-the-rack dress pants, which are
often made of smooth wool knits, which tend to hang - wait for it - slack.
Khakis are dress-casual pants, usually light tan in color, chinos are flat-front dress
pants often light beige in color, and then there are jeans, but hopefully you know what
those are.
Before the full-length, open-legged trousers we know today became the default form of pants,
European pants took multiple different forms.
Namely, these are breeches, pantaloons, and knickerbockers.
Prior to the late 16th century, the main term for leg coverings was hose, which were generally
separate coverings for each leg joined by a codpiece, but these were replaced by breeches,
which were a single, sewn-together garment.
Breeches usually ended right below the knee or midway down the calf, with either boots
or stockings worn below if a gentleman wanted to show off some of his sexy leg day gains.
"I can do the splits, no prooooblem."
Breeches fell out of fashion by 1820 and were replaced by pantaloons, which were slimmer
fitting and reached down to the ankle.
By the 1840s, looser fitting trousers replaced the tight pantaloon, inspired by sailors who
popularized the look.
But knee-length pants saw a resurgence in popularity in the 20th century in the form
of knickerbockers, which are baggy-kneed pants that end at or just below the knee.
"Half pants, right Mr. Franklin?"
“Knickers in fact, yes!”
"He's in his knickers."
These were popular for young boys in the early 20th century, and remain popular today for
sports uniforms.
Never has the difference between two styles of pants been bloodier or more political than
during the French Revolution.
The militant radical partisans of the lower-class common people of France during the French
Revolution and Reign of Terror were known as sans-culottes, meaning "without breeches."
This might make you picture a much sexier revolution than actually occurred until you
realize that "no breeches" doesn't mean they didn't wear any pants, just that they didn't
wear a specific kind of pants.
"What's going on?
This a…
French Revolution type of thing?"
"Culottes" in this instance refers to knee-length silk breeches favored by the aristocracy against
whom the rebels were rebelling.
The working class radicals who would come to be known as the sans-culottes wore ankle-length
pantaloons or trousers.
The sans-culottes were the radicals who called for the executions without trial that led
to the Reign of Terror, so definitely not as cute and charming as "there's an army in
France and they don't wear pants" might have you believe.
Still, the association between knee-breeches and aristocracy stuck, which caused them to
fall out of fashion in the 1800s.
Pants, of course, have for most of history been considered men's clothing, but hey!
Pants are for everyone!
In the early 1850s, a women's rights advocate named Amelia Bloomer suggested as "rational
dress" for women a costume made up of a short jacket and a knee-length skirt under which
would be worn loose, ankle-length trousers.
While the full costume didn't last, loose-fitting women's trousers, once very popular for women
to wear while bicycling, and of course women's baggy underwear would continue to bear the
name bloomers after their most prominent advocate.
The fight to make pants a gender-neutral garment in Europe and America has been a long one.
It was technically illegal for women to wear pantalon in Paris thanks to the violent reputation
of the sans-culottes.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, pants became a more common accessory for some working
women, including coal mine workers known as pit brow lasses and pilots.
Designers started making pants for women, and they began being considered leisure wear,
but women wearing pants in public could still cause a scandal, as happened with actress
Katharine Hepburn.
Fortunately, World War II helped to normalize the idea of women wearing pants thanks to
them becoming common for women working in factories during that time.
Even though the progress has not been quick or steady or even unidirectional, it has become
much more the norm for it to be cool for women to wear pants when they wanna.
Here's a thing that confuses even native speakers of English: Why do you call them "a pair of
pants"?
It's only one thing.
"Two pairs of pants" sounds like it's describing four things, when in fact it is only two.
One popular explanation tries to justify this by saying that in the olden days when pants
were pantaloons, they were actually two separate things where you put one on each leg and then
fastened them in the middle.
If you have been paying attention, however, you might note that while this describes medieval
hose, this is not true of even the earliest pantaloons.
Britannica says nah, too.
According to them, there's not really any evidence to support the two-piece pants theory.
The fact is, pants is just a linguistic phenomenon known as a plurale tantum, which is Latin
for "plural only."
"Well, hello Mr. fancy pants."
English has no shortage of such words.
Examples include electronics, odds, surroundings, and thanks.
However, English is especially fond of making pluralia tantum out of items that split or
divide cleanly into two symmetrical halves.
Pants are a natural fit, with their two legs that meet in the middle, as are scissors,
tweezers, pliers, and glasses.
You never say "a scissor," or "a plier."
Also, all of these are described as being a pair despite being technically a single
item.
Pants aren't really that fancy after all.
Unless, of course, they're fancy pants.
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