On Not Being Caught with One's Pants Down

A young friend of mine who regards me as an uncle sometimes has thematic parties. Once she hosted a formal tea party, not as a legitimate thing but in irony. On that occasion she asked to use my mom’s old teacup collection and some of my CDs of ‘40s-era music. The most recent was a “dad party” in which everyone dressed as older men and told stale jokes. For that one she asked to borrow my red suspenders. I wear suspenders (of various colors) entirely un-ironically.
 
Suspenders (in some places called braces) may be antiquated in fashion terms but they are surprisingly recent historically. One can’t very well speak of suspenders without first talking about what they suspend (or brace). Pants/trousers predate suspenders by millennia. (Terminology note: in colloquial US English all trousers are pants but not all pants are trousers, for “pants” also include such things as pajama bottoms and some undergarments.) Yet, even pants, while ancient, are not quite as old as one might think. Prehistoric people in colder climates did cover their lower bodies, but they tended to do it in pieces. Ötzi the Iceman, for example, had leggings and a waist vestment. Pants as a unified garment seem to have been invented at the same time as the domestication of horses, mostly likely on the Eurasian steppes. They are eminently suited for horseback riding. Ancient Greek artwork depicts Scythians and other horse warriors (including Amazons) in pants. The oldest surviving pair of trousers are more than 3000 years old. They were found in western China; the style and workmanship indicate a long established sartorial tradition.
 
Pants soon caught on among non-equestrian northern ancient barbarian tribes, notably the Germans, since they were more comfortable in cold weather than anything… well… breezier. Mediterranean cultures rejected the garments for a long time. When the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 CE, the Roman Emperor Honorius took firm action from his home in Ravenna by banning the wearing of pants – pants being Germanic attire. In China, however, trousers were in continuous use from ancient times by both sexes, especially but not exclusively among the working class, and usually were worn with a robe. After the fall of Rome, pants in the West as male attire increasingly replaced other garments even in southern Europe, particularly among peasants and laborers. By the 15^th century they were nearly universal in European middle and upper class circles as well. Thereafter, the styles and lengths varied widely over time as fashions came and went. Breeches that ended just below the knee held sway in the 18^th century, but after 1800 full length trousers became fashionable. Middle class women in Europe and North America started wearing them (some working class women always did) in the late 19^th century as sport and casual wear and did so with increasing frequency in the 20^th century. (I have photos of my grandmother in riding breeches in the 1920s and my mom in jeans in the 1940s.) They became common business attire for women in the 1970s.
 
Pants, for all their practicality, have one drawback – at least for those with waist measurements similar to (or larger than) hip measurements. They can fall down. Belts are the oldest answer but are not a perfect one. I speak from experience as someone with a body shape that, in order to keep pants in place, requires 1) cinching a belt so tight as to hurt the kidneys, 2) constantly hitching up pants by hand, which is awkward or impossible when both hands are full as when moving a sofa, or 3) wearing suspenders.
 
Suspenders seem an obvious idea to supplement (or replace) belts, yet we don’t have any evidence of them prior to the 1700s. That isn’t proof they didn’t exist, but if so they weren’t mentioned in literature or depicted in art. In the 18^th century they were simple cloth strips tied to buttonholes in pants. Intended to be no more visible than garters, they were worn under shirts. (Suspenders are still sometimes worn under shirts that don’t tuck in such as sweatshirts or polo shirts.) These originals weren’t very comfortable. In 1820 Albert Thurston came up with an improved design made of tightly woven wool that attached with leather loops. (You still can buy these.) They could be worn over shirts (they pretty much had to be if the shirts were tucked in) but still were expected to be under vests, jackets, or coats. (As always, these fashion considerations were a middle and upper class concern; workers wore whatever was practical however was practical.) Suspender design continued to improve throughout the 19^th century; the products became more elastic and adjustable. In 1894 suspenders with metal clasps were invented, so they could be used on any pants – not just those tailored for them with buttons or buttonholes.
 
In the 1920s and 1930s suspenders worn openly over shirts developed a sort of cachet. Gangsters and private detectives are often depicted with them in films of the ‘30s and ‘40s. After World War 2 their popularity faded but they never went away entirely. For some body types they are, as mentioned above, practical – and, yes, my young friend is right that it’s a body type common among older men. Some wearers do not have this body shape challenge but simply like the look. Suspenders sometimes turn up in women’s fashions too, e.g. the Annie Hall phase in the ‘70s.
 
As for me, I just like keeping my pants up as a favor to myself and to the world at large – and yes I wear suspenders with a belt. I drive with a spare tire in the trunk, too. Redundancy is safety.  

A few years ago

A few months ago

 

 

Randy Newman – Pants