Slim-fit pants
Slim-fit pants
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Slim-fit pants

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Slim-fit pants

Slim-fit pants or skinny jeans (when made of denim) 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.

Skinny pants taper completely at the bottom of the leg, whereas drainpipes are skinny but then the lower leg is straight instead of tapering and so they are often slightly baggier at the bottom of the leg than skinny jeans. In some very skinny styles, zippers are needed at the bottom of the leg to facilitate pulling them over the feet because the leg opening is so small. Stretch denim, with anywhere from 2% to 4% spandex, may be used to allow jeans to have a "super-slim fit". Skinny jeans come in a variety of colors and styles.

Before the 18th century, European men wore breeches and hose. In Tudor times, these breeches were loose-fitting, but by the 1660s, tight breeches were fashionable. These were popularised by Frenchmen at the court of Louis XIII, as part of the three piece suit that also included a type of frock coat called a Justacorps, a tricorne hat, a powdered wig, and a long waistcoat. During the Restoration era, the tighter breeches were introduced to England, and the rest of Europe, because the cut was deemed more flattering to the leg.

From the 16th until the 19th century, the Mughlai nobility attired themselves in tight-fitting churidars which were worn tied below the knee. These trousers, and other elements of traditional clothing like the shalwar kameez, were often worn by Englishmen working in India, especially officers of the East India Company.

Tight-fitting trousers were fashionable from 1805 until 1850, being descended from the loose work trousers worn as a political statement by Sans-Culottes during the French Revolution. These "pantaloons," popularised by Regency era Englishmen such as Beau Brummel, were worn high on the waist and tailored to accentuate the leg like the breeches previously fashionable among the upper class. Pantaloons were tied (or buttoned) around the ankle and commonly put into boots.

Pants, which had come to mean tight-fitting trousers, but now just a synonym, fitted more loosely from the 1840s onwards as mass-production replaced tailoring. Beginning in the Edwardian era and continuing into the 1920s, baggy "Oxford" or "collegiate" trousers and plus fours were fashionable among the younger generation. As the name suggests, Oxford bags originated at the UK's elite universities, where young upper class men pursued an active, sports-centred lifestyle.

Drainpipe trousers re-emerged in the 1950s, with popular Western stars such as the singing cowboy Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Zorro and Gene Autry and actresses Marilyn Monroe and Sandra Dee wearing their pants very slim to the ankle from 1955 onwards. Tapered jeans became most notable with country music stars and with the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s, when Elvis Presley donned slim-fitting jeans and shocked the country.

In the early 1960s, drainpipes were worn by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and other rock music acts. Fashion icon Audrey Hepburn also raised the popularity of drainpipe jeans. Slim fitting pants and jeans were worn not just by members of the teenage Mod or greaser subculture but also ordinary people. By 1962, Sears were selling tight jeans made from "stretch" denim that incorporated elastane. The trend lasted until the end of the 1960s when "hippie" culture gave rise to flared pants and bell bottom jeans.

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