Young Brunette Girl With Long Hair Wearing Silver Pants On Stairs

During the French Revolution, the male citizens of France adopted a working-class costume including ankle-length trousers, or pantaloons, (from a Commedia dell'Arte character named Pantalone) in place of the aristocratic knee-breeches. The new garment of the revolutionaries differed from that of the ancien regime upper classes in three ways: It was loose where the style for breeches had most recently been form-fitting, it was ankle length where breeches had generally been knee-length for more than two centuries, and they were open at the bottom while breeches were fastened. This style was introduced to England in the early 19th century, possibly by Beau Brummell, and by mid-century had supplanted breeches as fashionable street wear. At this point, even knee length pants adopted the open bottoms of trousers and were worn by young boys, for sports, and in tropical climates. Breeches proper survived into the 20th century as Court Dress, and also in baggy mid-calf (or three-quarter length) version known as plus-fours or knickers worn for active sports and by young school-boys. Types of breeches are still worn today by baseball and American football players.
Sailors may have played a role in the worldwide dissemination of trousers as a fashion. In the 17th and 18th 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 19th century in the American West because of their ruggedness and durability.
• Women's trousers
Although women began wearing men's trousers for outdoor work a hundred years earlier in Western countries, it was taboo for women to wear trousers. It was only in the 1960s, that trousers became acceptable for Western women to wear.