Traditional Ancient Persian/Iranic clothing’s of different eras of history.
Those videos looking at 18th century English women’s clothing–and my continuing horror at the idea of regularly having to wear that many layers including stays to do any kind of work–reminded me of one period journal that just about choked me to death laughing when I ran across it several years ago.
It’s not just me imagining that pretty much all my folks were naked savages by certain standards, by that point.
(As an Anglican missionary, dealing with people who were mostly not English and not at all interested in the still-official colonial Church of England.)
Here I found a vast Body of People assembled—Such a Medley! such a mixed Multitude of all Classes and Complexions I never saw…I was a Great Curiosity to them—And they were as great Oddities to me. After Service they went to Revelling Drinking Singing Dancing and Whoring—and most of the Company were drunk before I quitted the Spot—They were as rude in their Manners as the Common Savages, and hardly a degree removed from them. Their Dresses almost as loose and Naked as the Indians, and differing in Nothing save Complexion—I could not conceive from whence this vast Body could swarm—But this Country contains ten times the Number of Persons beyond my Apprehension.
Swarming aroud busily engaged in Revelling Drinking Singing Dancing and Whoring, while next to naked. Sounds like quite an experience for Charles!
Withal there is such a Republican Spirit still left, so much of the Old Leaven of Lord Shaftsbury and other the 1st principal Settlers still remains, that they seem not at all disposed to promote the Interest of the Church of England—Hence it is that above 30,000£ Sterling have lately been expended to bring over 5 or 6000 Ignorant, mean, worthless, beggarly Irish Presbyterians, the Scum of the Earth, and Refuse of Mankind, and this, solely to ballance the Emigrations of People from Virginia, who are all of the Established Church.
Tell us what you really think, Charles! (OK, I was intending to stick to the horrible nakedness. But that describes a decent chunk of the scum he was trying to convert. Also, the Virginia he mentions didn’t include the “frontier”. Filled with the exact same refuse of Mankind.)
Anyway, back to the horrible nakedness.
It would be (as I once observ’d before) a Great Novelty to a Londoner to see one of these Congregations—The Men with only I a thin Shirt and pair of Breeches or Trousers on—barelegged and barefooted—The Women bareheaded, barelegged and barefoot with only a thin Shift and under Petticoat—Yet I cannot break [them?] of this—for the heat of the Weather admits not of any [but] thin Cloathing—I can hardly bear the Weight of my Whig and Gown, during Service. The Young Women have a most uncommon Practise, which I cannot break them off. They draw their Shift as tight as possible to the Body, and pin it close, to shew the roundness of their Breasts, and slender Waists (for they are generally finely shaped) and draw their Petticoat close to their Hips to shew the fineness of their Limbs—so that they might as well be in Puri Naturalibus—Indeed Nakedness is not censurable or indecent here, and they expose themselves often quite Naked, without Ceremony—Rubbing themselves and their Hair with Bears Oil and tying it up behind in a Bunch like the Indians—being hardly one degree removed from them—In few Years, I hope to bring about a Reformation, as I already have done in several Parts of the Country.
That seems to have worked out for him about as well as one might expect.
And of course old Charles wasn’t looking at those fine limbs at all, as he sweltered in his proper wig and gown. Never mind the probable outrage at just how often that one degree of separation broke down. (With all the Revelling and Whoring! And not so sexualized nakedness going on, apparently! 😨)
I can only imagine that the man would have gone down almost as big a treat dealing with working Londoners up close.
But, definitely some pretty big differences in historical dress norms, depending on where and who you were.
1. When eurasian nomads first started making pants in the first millenium BC, they didn’t cut the cloth to shape, they wove the shapes they needed on the loom. Mostly rectangles, but still interesting.
2. Pants were a very elaborate garment at the time! When humans first started weaving and wearing cloth, clothes were pretty much “giant rectangle that you wrap around your body and sometimes a belt”. Then, people started making tunics and tunic derivatives, which is basically another rectangle, but this time with a hole for your head and sometimes sewn up the side. Now you have TWO pieces of clothes: the rectangle with a hole, and the bigger wrappy rectangle. This covers like 90% of ancient clothes, including the Roman toga and tunica. So pants, which covered your legs individually, were very ???? to ancient mediterranean people.
3. Otzi, an austrian guy who lived ~3300 BC, was found frozen in the Alps, wearing “pants”, consisting of two individual leg-sleeves made of animal skins with the fur inwards, and a loincloth. The legs of the “pants” tied on to a belt.
4. This is a similar setup to European medieval hose, except that hose didn’t have fur, and also had footies. Also, the whole separate-legged pants things is why our modern word ‘pants’ is plural, even though today it’s one garment.
5. Pants enabled a big leap in military technology- chariots to cavalry. Pants means you can ride a horse and still have your genitals intact afterwards. Turns out, sticking people on top of horses is much more effective than having the horses drag the people around behind them.
6. In like ~300 BC, the Chinese were having massive amounts of trouble with the pants-wearing, cavalry-having Eurasian nomads. Then, some guy had the brilliant idea of making everyone wear pants instead of robes, and proceeded to drive back the nomads and unite China.
7. The Romans and Greeks considered pants to be barbaric and feminine. But having muscular legs was very masculine. Some men were known for wearing ridiculously short tunics to show off their thighs. Marc Antony once mooned everyone by accident because he was wearing a miniskirt and no pants. Very manly.
8. Peter the Great decided that Russia had to be more like the rest of Europe, so he implemented some really strict policies, including a beard tax and mandatory pants. Yes, you could be punished if you didn’t wear pants.
9. The fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent was a major factor in making it acceptable for women to wear pants in public, which wasn’t really a culturally accepted thing until almost the end of the 60′s. In 1966, he debuted on the runway the first women’s tuxedo, which was met with a very ‘meh’ critical reception at the time, but is now considered one of fashion’s most influential works.
10. In the UK, ‘pants’ specifically refers to underpants.
bonus fact: it’s really not that hard to put pockets on pants, but so many designers seem incapable of figuring it out.
10. In the UK, ‘pants’ specifically refers to underpants.
Writer Note: The outer garments are “trousers” or “jeans”, less commonly “slacks”, “twills” or “flannels” (white cricketing trousers are sometimes called that).
Another underwear-as-outerwear word: US “knickers” (short for “knickerbockers”, knee-breeches or plus-fours) are usually worn for golf…
…but were once everyday stylish (and despite protests, unisex) street attire.
However “knickers” in the UK means specifically “ladies’ underpants”, so they’re not unisex
(at least not widely admitted as such), and they’re definitely not street wear except in unusual circumstances.
That said, a lot of modern men’s “shorts” (a word which in the US often means “underwear” even without the prefix “boxer”) are so long that a way to close the hems over a pair of high socks would turn them into knickerbockers – or even their larger cousin “plus-fours”, which extended “plus-four inches” past the knee and were baggy with it.
Names for early-mid 20th century trousers also included “bags” (AFAIK the word’s still used) derived from “Oxford Bags”, extravagantly loose trousers worn by the same Uni students and young men-about-town who wore plus-fours.
These are extreme even for bags, but there was a reason:
These more sensibly proportioned bags are worn by my Dad in about 1939 (the car is a 1938 Morris 8 series II). About 6 months later he was in a fireman’s uniform for the duration…
This is very interesting! One thing, though: I’ve lived in the US my entire life and have never heard anyone use “shorts” to refer to underwear, with “boxer shorts” being the one exception. (Though I hear just “boxers” more often.) So this is either a highly regional thing or a twentieth century thing that hasn’t passed on to modern day.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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