The Cutter's Practical Guide, Part 3: Trouser, Breeches & Knickers

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Once again we have written our ideas on Trouser Cutting. The system herein described is so simple that the veriest novice may learn it and cut smartfitting garments by it after a few hours' study; but at the same time embracing problems so difficult that many of them still remain unsolved.

We trust and believe this work will be found an advance on all our previous efforts.

The Essay which won the Federation Prize was our first attempt, and of this the Secretary of the Federation wrote: — The very exhaustive nature of the first part of this elaborate essay is in itself an excellent work upon Trouser Cutting in every shape and from; added to this, the elaborate treatment of objects with so many excellent diagrams completes a work upon cutting that has no rival.

As edition after edition was sold out, we revised and enlarged upon the principals there laid down, and now, after a lapse of fourteen years, we have remodelled the system, greatly improving it in certain directions, simplifying it where possible, and illustrating its application to a large number of styles never before treated in this way. If the verdict of the trade on our first effort was a favourable one, we have little doubt it will be equally appreciative of this one, which not only contains the results of the research and experience of our younger years, but also the fruit of the maturer thought of added years and enlarged experience.

This work, whilst being complete in itself, and thoroughly exhausting its own theme forms part of a series of books treating of every phase of a cutter's experience, by the aid of which we hope to place in the hands of the young man who aspires to a position in the cutting room, a book which will supply him with information of a practical and helpful character under every circumstance of his professional life.

W. D. F. Vincent

THE

Cutter's Practical Guide

TO THE CUTTING ALL KINDS OF

TROUSERS

BREECHES, GAITERS, &c.

The following treatise on the subject of Trouser Cutting is the outcome of various editions of what was originally written as an essay for competition, and which was awarded the first prize. Years have gone by since that was first offered to the trade, and with these, changes of fashion have taken place, rendering the style of the original work out of date. The experience gained during those years has not been without profit, so that we are enabled to add much that was lacking and improve much that was weak.

The foundation of the work, however, remains essentially the same. The experience of thousands of our students, who have filled important and lucrative situations of all classes and have had for their customers all sorts and conditions of men, has been that as a system it is all that could be desired, and the man who masters the principles laid down and applies them in an intelligent manner will be able to cut Trousers to meet the most varied demands. The fact that we have had so many students under our care has helped us to realize the difficulties of the learner, and we trust we shall be able to utilize these in making this book simpler than any of its predecessors. Our aim will be to be as practical as possible, we shall keep back nothing that will be helpful, and we shall do our best to make every point as simple as possible as we proceed.

Natural History.

There is a widespread notion that Trousers are a nineteenth-century innovation, and we have seen it argued that as they are mostly used for indoor wear and city life, they will sooner or later give way to the shorter garments — breeches or knickers. As far as the first statement is concerned there is ample evidence that Trousers were worn in the most remote ages of antiquity.

About Breeches and Trousers.

If one is to take literally the book of Genesis, then Adam was the inventor of Trousers. This shows their antiquity. That his first pair were of fig leaves and that he soon changed them for the skins of animals proves their fleeting fashion.

The real beginning of trousers is lost in the darkness of Oriental mysticism, and the first actual record of them in pictorial history is when the ancient — the very ancient — Persian introduced them into his dress.

Then they were long, that is, to the ankles, and short, as in knickerbockers, and both worn with a tunic, the skirt of which reached to the knees. In both of these respects they were not far different from the trousers of today.

Ancient Egyptians of about the same period wore a skirt to the ankles in front of which suspended from the belt, hung a pyramidal- shaped form to represent a segment of the sun. This was his ceremonial dress. For less formal occasions the skirt was shorter, showing legs bare from the knees down.

Greeks, Etruscans, and Roman citizens of that time wore a skirt to the knees, while important personages, scholars, and men in authority wore long robes.

But the barbarian of Eastern Europe early discarded such feminine attributes as skirts and wore real trousers, and may be called the originators of what, not many years ago, were vulgarly called baggy pants.

When Julius Cæsar landed in England he found the inhabitants wearing trousers, for were they not known as Gallia Bracata? — Trousered Gaul. Tacitus mentions them in his history. The troops of Trojan's column are equipped in them. The Museum of Pompeii contains tangible evidence that when that city was overthrown the inhabitants, or, at any rate, some of them, wore trousers, and so one might go on to show that in the ancient world both Viking and Russian, Gaul and Chinaman, Persian and German, all wore trousers.

At the time of the invasion of Britain, the Romans saw and laughed at these garments, which they named braccae, from which the word breeches is derived.

The Franks had a peculiar idea of the use of breeches, and wore them in open-work style, resembling the covering housewives put over what are humorously called cross-bar pie. Strips of leather were wound around the legs cross-wise, from the ankles to the hips.

For several centuries during the early part of the Christian era the robe or skirt was worn by the men of the East, while those of the West and North were given to a closer and heavier leg covering necessitated by the severer climate. They were of either the skins of animals or rude cloth, according to season.

The word trousers was derived from trossers or truis, signifying to truss or tuck up, used to distinguish the Barbarians from the Greeks and Romans.

1st Century.

16th Century.

It was used for all sorts of leg coverings and the name appears in the wardrobe accounts of the reign of King Henry VIII.

The Gauls were invariably distinguished in Greek sculpture as wearing leg coverings like unto those worn to-day.

In Scotland and Ireland the garment was known as truis, where its antiquity is only inferior to that of its Oriental prototype.

In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy there is a pair of trousers of great antiquity. They are grandly chequered.

Breeches, as an English word, broke into nomenclature during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Previously they had been known in England as upper-stocks or slops.

In an inventory taken at Barmeston, February 28, 1581, there appears among the goods and chattels of one Sir Thomas Boynton, Knight, deceased, Item, 6 pare of velvet brytches, with three pare of lether brytches.

In 1592 breeches were so wide that it was necessary to build in the House of Parliament a separate gallery to accommodate those who wore them. They were stuffed at the hips, a process called bombasting, as an old writer expressed it, with woods, with flaxe, with hair also, to make their brytches wyde.

The same writer also says: They bombasted their brytches with cattle's tails.

A pair of breeches of the period illustrated by Planche look as if they might be the prototype of the padded breeches used on the football field. They are of heavy brown cloth, heavily padded and quilted.

During the same century the gentlemen of France and Germany went into the greatest extravagance in leg coverings.

A German swell of the sixteenth century wore silks and satins, puffs, slashings and ribbons, and rioted in colours. The right leg of his unmentionables were puffed and slashed bulbously from the hip to the knee, each row of puffs smaller than the other, terminating in a bow of ribbons. The puffs were of alternating longitudinal stripes of pink and blue.

The right leg was tightly covered with red silk. The stockings were alike, of pink and blue stripes.

Another German dandy of the same period wore his right leg in puffs to the knee, each cascade of puffs caught by a drooping sash of buff leather. The left leg was very baggy, with longitudinal stripes.

The stripes were alternately yellow and black, or any other fanciful combination of colours, and the stuff was satin.

18th Century.

19th Century.

In England bombasting stopped when Charles I. went to the throne. Short trousers, loose at the knee, end in a fringe or row of ribbons or lace.

Charles II. introduced the petticoat breeches, voluminous, lace trimmed, beribboned and covered with feminine fripperies.

But now also came into fashion sterner things - leather breeches, coats, boots and spurs of the swashbuckler.

While the dandies at court also wore boots of soft leather terminating where the lace began, those of the rough rider of the day were almost hip high, because of the vile condition of the English roads, and they were very big and dashing withal, against which the sword slapped bravely as he rode or walked.

During the reign of William III. tight knee breeches were worn by all classes, and still forms a part of tho English costume. At first they did not reach to the knee and the stockings were brought up over them to the middle of the thigh. Afterwards they were buttoned beneath the knee or fastened with gold, silver or jewelled buckles.

In 1700 men of quality wore tight knee breeches, the long flaps of their satin waistcoats nearly meeting the stockings. Their stockings were of silk, the heels of their shoes were of red wood, and the buckles jewelled. Middleclass youths imitated the style of their betters, but instead of silks, satins, and velvets, were content with red shag, striped with black.

George II. introduced black velvet breeches. In a satire written in 1727 appears the line, Without black velvet breeches what is man?

About 1760 the breeches began to get longer and tighter. The London Chronicle of that time says, the leg in high taste is not longer than a common councilman's tobacco stopper.

Doe and buckskin breeches then came in and were made so tight that the most absurd means were resorted to for putting them on. A man said to his tailor: If I can get into them I won't have them.

The beginning of the nineteenth century saw the dandy at his height, who went to most absurd lengths and eccentricities in his dress, the Incroyable of Paris. His brecches were as tight as they could be made, and fastened below the knee with loops of ribbons.

The cloth was of the most delicate texture and shade of colour. His stockings were fanciful in design, and his slippers of the most dainty pattern. His coat tails were long and narrow, and hung to the bend of his knee.

Various reasons are assigned for the trouser revival which took place at this time. Planche in his history of Costume says, Pantaloons, and Hessian boots were introduced about the end of the eighteenth century. Short boots and loose trousers.

The Result of the Yisit of the Cossacks To London, have, together with Frock coats, rendered our dress more convenient and less formal.

Some tell us that they are the result of excessive drinking. At the end of the eighteenth century it was the fashion to drink to an extent almost unknown nowadays. The direct result was gout, and the indirect result, trousers. Knee breeches and stockings were unsuitable for people with swollen legs on account both of appearance and comfort.

Another version is that with the nineteenth century came this strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry, its divided — aims. Men wished for garments which could be put on with the greatest possible speed, and hence long trousers were adopted.

And yet another reason given is the French Revolution. To mark their contempt for old Court usages the French substituted long trousers for the Court dress.

More than one debate took place on the subject by the representatives of the people and even Robespierre joked on the subject. The term Sansculotte means without breeches and was a term of derision used by the aristocrats in reference to the popular party, but was afterwards assumed by patriots as a title of honour. The nation remembered the garb worn before the tyrant Ceasar came, when they thought universal happiness prevailed, and as they were now inaugurating a new era, when universal happiness was once again to be enjoyed, they would wear the garb of their forefathers, and so trousers were adopted.

A writer in a recent number of The Exchange said: Trousers came into use for general wear with the French revolution. The gentlemen, the supporters of royalty and sound constitutional principles, wore breeches. The sans culottes", who denounced every one who wore breeches, finally went beyond their opponents and wore twice as much cloth around their legs — in a word, adopted the modern trousers and made them the badge of a party. Napoleon, who was too thin at one period of his life and too stout at another to look his best in small clothes, nevertheless wore them on state occasions after he had been crowned emperor. His army was the first that wore trousers, and they kept progress step by step with the march of the French legions.

"The French trousers were seen in Egypt, in Spain, in Italy, in Germany, in Poland, and in