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Hose are any of various styles of men's clothing for the legs and lower body, worn from the Middle Ages through the 17th century, when the style fell out of use in favour of breeches and stockings. The old plural form of "hose" was "hosen". In German these terms (Hose, singular, and Hosen, plural) remained in use and are the generic terms for trousers today. The French equivalent was chausses.
Since the 13th century, hose were already known to have been worn in Europe; these were tights that stretch from waist to feet. The outline of the legs were conspicuously shown, with the groin area sometimes covered by a material called a codpiece. However, unlike modern tights, these hose were not elastic; they were held firm while laced to the doublet and tied from small holes. [1]
During the 14th century, medieval hoses were made of wool and were made to fit tightly. Towards the end of the century traders and shopkeepers wore coloured hoses. Some people did away with wearing shoes and instead wore a hose that had leather soles sewn under the foot section, this part of the hose being the same colour as the rest of the leggings. Brighter hoses seem to be more prominent by the late 14th century, and seem to more resemble trousers that was held up with rope-belts at the waist; hose were sometimes tied directly to the doublet. [2]
15th century hose were often made particolored or mi-parti, having each leg having a different colour, or even one leg made of two colors. These early hose were footed, in the manner of modern tights, and were open from the crotch to the leg. When very short doublets were in fashion, codpieces were added to cover the front opening.
By the 16th century, hose had separated into two garments: upper hose or breeches and nether hose or stockings.
From the mid-16th to early 17th centuries, a variety of styles of hose were in fashion. Popular styles included:
Trunk hose and slops could be paned or pansied, with strips of fabric (panes) over a full inner layer or lining. A pansied slop is a round hose characterized by the addition of a layer of panes, or strips of fabric running from the waistband to the leg band. These are commonly referred to as "pumpkin" pants.
Other varieties included:
In the latter 16th century, breeches began to replace hoses. Unlike breeches, which were sewn together, the hose were in principle separate garments for each leg.
Tights are a kind of cloth garment, most often sheathing the body from the waist to the toe tips with a tight fit, hence the name. They come in absolute opaque, opaque, sheer and fishnet styles — or a combination, such as the original concept of the American term pantyhose with sheer legs and opaque panty.
A codpiece is a triangular piece that attached to the front of men's hose, covering the fly. It may be held in place by ties or buttons. It was an important fashion item of European clothing during the 15th–16th centuries, in the 16th century becoming a firm upwards-pointing projection based on a stiff material such as boiled leather, or in plate armour, steel.
Stockings are close-fitting, variously elastic garments covering the leg from the foot up to the knee or possibly part or all of the thigh. Stockings vary in color, design, and transparency. Today, stockings are primarily worn for fashion and aesthetics, usually in association with mid-length or short skirts.
Pantyhose, sometimes also called sheer tights, are close-fitting legwear covering the wearer's body from the waist to the toes. Pantyhose first appeared on store shelves in 1959 for the advertisement of new design panties as a convenient alternative to stockings and/or control panties which, in turn, replaced girdles.
Leggings are several types of leg attire that have varied through the years. Modern usage from the 1960s onwards has come to refer to elastic close-fitting high-rise garments worn over the legs typically by women, such as leg warmers or tights. Usage from the 18th century refers to men's wear usually made of cloth or leather that is wrapped around the leg down to the ankle. In the 19th century, leggings usually referred to infants' leg clothing that were matched with a jacket, as well as leg-wrappings made of leather or wool and worn by soldiers and trappers. Leggings prominently returned to women's fashion in the 1960s, drawing from the form-fitting clothing of dancers. With the widespread adoption of the synthetic fibre Lycra and the rise in popularity of aerobics, leggings came to further prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, and eventually made their way into streetwear. Leggings are a part of the late 2010s into the 2020s athleisure fashion trend of wearing activewear outside sporting activities and in casual settings.
Breeches are an article of clothing covering the body from the waist down, with separate coverings for each leg, usually stopping just below the knee, though in some cases reaching to the ankles. Formerly a standard item of Western men's clothing, they had fallen out of use by the mid-19th century in favour of trousers.
A doublet is a man's snug-fitting jacket that is shaped and fitted to a man's body. The garment was worn in Spain, and spread to the rest of Western Europe, from the late Middle Ages up to the 17th century. Until the end of the 15th century, the doublet was usually worn under another layer of clothing such as a gown, mantle, or houppelande when in public. In the 16th century it was covered by the jerkin. Women started wearing doublets in the 16th century, and these garments later evolved as the corset and stay. The doublet was thigh length, hip length or waist length and worn over the shirt or drawers.
Fashion in the period 1550–1600 in European clothing was characterized by increased opulence. Contrasting fabrics, slashes, embroidery, applied trims, and other forms of surface ornamentation remained prominent. The wide silhouette, conical for women with breadth at the hips and broadly square for men with width at the shoulders had reached its peak in the 1530s, and by mid-century a tall, narrow line with a V-lined waist was back in fashion. Sleeves and women's skirts then began to widen again, with emphasis at the shoulder that would continue into the next century. The characteristic garment of the period was the ruff, which began as a modest ruffle attached to the neckband of a shirt or smock and grew into a separate garment of fine linen, trimmed with lace, cutwork or embroidery, and shaped into crisp, precise folds with starch and heated irons.
Jodhpurs, in their modern form, are tight-fitting trousers to the ankle, where they end in a snug cuff, and are worn primarily for horse riding. The term is also used as slang for a type of short riding boot, also called a paddock boot or a jodhpur boot, because they are worn with jodhpurs.
Fashion in the period 1600–1650 in Western clothing is characterized by the disappearance of the ruff in favour of broad lace or linen collars. Waistlines rose through the period for both men and women. Other notable fashions included full, slashed sleeves and tall or broad hats with brims. For men, hose disappeared in favour of breeches.
Chausses were a Medieval term for leggings, which was also used for leg armour; routinely made of mail and referred to as mail chausses. They generally extended well-above the knee, covering most of the leg. Mail chausses were the standard type of metal leg armour in Europe from the 11th to the 14th century. Chausses offered flexible protection that was effective against slashing weapons. However, the wearer still felt the full force of crushing blows.
Knickerbockers, or knickers in the United States (US), are a form of baggy-kneed breeches, particularly popular in the early 20th-century United States. Golfers' plus twos and plus fours are similar. Until after World War I, in many English-speaking countries, boys customarily wore short pants in summer and "knee pants" similar to knickers in winter. At the onset of puberty or sometime in their teens, they graduated to long trousers. In that era, the transition to "long pants" was a major rite of passage. Men continued to wear knickerbockers for athletics, outdoor work, and other informal activities for which they were practical. During the early 20th century, knickerbockers were also increasingly worn by women.
Slim-fit pants or skinny jeans are tight trousers that have a snug fit through the legs and end in a small leg opening that can be anywhere from 9" to 20" in circumference, depending on size. Other names for this style include drainpipes, stovepipes, tight pants, cigarette pants, pencil pants, skinny pants, gas pipes, skinnies, and tight jeans.
Bases are the cloth military skirts, generally richly embroidered, worn over the armour of later men-at-arms such as French gendarmes in the late 15th to early 16th century, as well as the plate armour skirt later developed in imitation of cloth bases for supplemental upper-leg protection, worn by men-at-arms for foot combat.
Fashion in 15th-century Europe was characterized by a surge of experimentation and regional variety, from the voluminous robes called houppelandes with their sweeping floor-length sleeves to the revealing giornea of Renaissance Italy. Hats, hoods, and other headdresses assumed increasing importance, and were draped, jeweled, and feathered.
Fashion in fourteenth-century Europe was marked by the beginning of a period of experimentation with different forms of clothing. Costume historian James Laver suggests that the mid-14th century marks the emergence of recognizable "fashion" in clothing, in which Fernand Braudel concurs. The draped garments and straight seams of previous centuries were replaced by curved seams and the beginnings of tailoring, which allowed clothing to more closely fit the human form. Also, the use of lacing and buttons allowed a more snug fit to clothing.
Outside Western cultures, men's clothing commonly includes skirts and skirt-like garments; however, in the Americas and much of Europe, skirts are usually seen as feminine clothing and socially stigmatized for men and boys to wear, despite having done so for centuries. While there are exceptions, most notably the cassock and the kilt, these are not generally considered skirts in the typical sense of fashion wear; rather they are worn as cultural and vocational garments. People have variously attempted to promote the fashionable wearing of skirts by men in Western culture and to do away with this gender distinction.
Twelfth century European fashion was simple in cut and differed only in details from the clothing of the preceding centuries, starting to become tighter and more similar for men and women as the century went on, which would continue in the 13th century. Men wore knee-length tunics for most activities, and men of the upper classes wore long tunics, with hose and mantle or cloaks. Women wore long tunics or gowns. A close fit to the body, full skirts, and long flaring sleeves were characteristic of upper-class fashion for both men and women.
Trousers, slacks, or pants are an item of clothing worn from the waist to anywhere between the knees and the ankles, covering both legs separately. In the United Kingdom, the word pants generally means underwear and not trousers. Shorts are similar to trousers, but with legs that come down only to around the area of the knee, higher or lower 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.
Underwear, underclothing, or undergarments are items of clothing worn beneath outer clothes, usually in direct contact with the skin, although they may comprise more than a single layer. They serve to keep outer clothing from being soiled or damaged by bodily excretions, to lessen the friction of outerwear against the skin, to shape the body, and to provide concealment or support for parts of it. In cold weather, long underwear is sometimes worn to provide additional warmth. Special types of undergarments have religious significance. Some items of clothing are designed as undergarments, while others, such as T-shirts and certain types of shorts, are appropriate both as underwear and outerwear. If made of suitable material or textile, some underwear can serve as nightwear or swimwear, and some undergarments are intended for sexual attraction or visual appeal.
A la polaca. Las de rayas transversales.
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