15,697
edits
Changes
no edit summary
After the Romans accepted pants, they became a more standard mode of dress across the Western world. As centuries went on, it became those who did not wear pants who stood out, such as Scottish soldiers who wore kilts into battle up into the 20th century. Even as in previous civilizations, pants had served as a designator of completing a specific task for the upper class of later Western civilizations. They serve to show modernity and how the wearer fits the mold of masculinity. By being prepared to carry out physical activities and not constrained by tight clothing or billowing robes, new fashions showed a change in the cultural mindset as to what was appropriate for these men to accomplish. To show how this change occurred, it helps to look at the specific cases of Imperial Russia and Regency England.<ref>Mila Contini, Fashion, from ancient Egypt to the present day (New York: Odyssey Press, 1965), 183.</ref>
[[File:1200px-A_Boyar_Wedding_Feast_(Konstantin_Makovsky,_1883)_Google_Cultural_Institute.jpg|thumbnail300px|275pxLeft|left| By Konstantin Makovsky, 1883 - Google Cultural Institute (original file link), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44381235. The painting depicts two Boyar families at a wedding.]]As part of a mission to drag Russia into what he viewed as the modern world, Peter the Great issued a decree, in 1701, on modern clothing stating that upper-class men were to follow these guidelines concerning attire - “The upper dress shall be of French or Saxon cut, and the lower dress and underwear-[including] waistcoat, trousers, boots, shoes, and hats- shall be of the German type.” This replaced the previous style of floor-length caftans.
The pants mentioned in this decree were the knee-breeches popularized at the time by the French court. In forcing the Russian court to adopt Western styles, Peter I used clothing to highlight the larger societal change efforts he was putting into place within the country. <ref>"PETER'S DECREES ON WESTERN DRESS AND SHAVING, 1701 AND 1705"</ref>
