Considering the ubiquity of pants in contemporary costume throughout the West and more and more visibly in the East, it is interesting to note that they were not a staple in men’s fashion until very late in recorded history. Pants or trousers really only became a feature of fashion after developing from the hose and breeches of the 15th through 18th centuries. What we see men and women wearing today is a variation of something quite different that evolved in men’s costume as tunic’s became shorter in the medieval period.

In the 12th century the tunic dropped to about knee-length and men would wear often loose-fitting hose underneath. The hose would rise above the knee and would fasten to drawers (called braies) or be held in place by leg bands, thus providing warmth and coverage but still not considered a separate garment. By the middle of the 1300s hose were made of progressively tighter knits and as they became more fitted they also rose in length to compensate for the shortening of the tunic. As the tunic shortened and gave way to the more form-fitted doublet (that initially was worn under the tunic but soon dominated as a form) the hose gained in length and would be fastened to the doublet. The doublet narrowed at the waist and flared slightly at the hips to accentuate a certain ideal of figure and the well-fitted hose complemented this. By the 14th century it was typical for hose to form a single garment (as opposed to the separate pieces for each leg) and since the doublet had become even shorter with time the hose would be refitted for modesty by the attachment of a codpiece.

Towards the 1500’s the hose again transformed and evolved to become a single garment that ended at the knee and which the wearer would complement with separate stockings held up over the knee with garters. This shorter version of the hose would lead to the padded hose which would express, in their girth, a flamboyance and degree of excess compatible with the spirit of Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. The padded hose then gave way to rich silk and satin breeches that would dominate until the period of the French Revolution and the dissolution of certain class ideals and distinctions.

What we have today, as a kind of everyman’s garment, is only the latest mutation of a form that has lengthened and shortened, broadened and narrowed, simplified and amplified, throughout Western history in an ongoing display of function allied with fancy.

*image- from Luttrell Psalter- servant wearing tunic and hose. Illuminated Manuscript,1325 - 1335.
*image- Francois Clouet. 1566. Porträt des Königs Karl IX. von Frankreich (with padded hose)
*image-William Hogarth, detail of The Strode Family, 1738 Oil on canvas (man in red breeches)

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