A wedding , an interview or simply a day at the office is an opportunity to wear a suit.
Born in the 19th century, he has kept a detail that we still value to this day: a marked crease on the legs of his pants. Before the French Revolution, no model had one. Those of common men were of a rudimentary cut and existed only to cover and protect the legs.
As for those occasionally donned by elites for horseback riding, they were as sticky as their britches. It was when pants became everyday clothing and became a lasting choice for women that the first wrinkles appeared.
DECORATIVE FOLDS
By becoming the clothing of the great people of this world, pants have entered fashion and their practical function has been added an aesthetic value. Shapes and cuts began to multiply in the 1810s, when pleated pants appeared.
These were then not on the leg, with the fabric stretched by straps and straps, but at the waist. There could be two (one on each side), eight, ten and even “a thousand” according to the newspapers.
These models with a thousand folds actually numbered only around twenty, whose origin is perhaps exotic: if they covered the legs of elegant Parisians, they were also, according to Alphonse de Lamartine, a traditional element of the costume of the Druze, described in his Voyage en Orient (1835).
Portrait of a French Zouave in 1842. The costume of these soldiers was inspired by the clothing of the inhabitants of North Africa, which shared several similarities with the Orient. The accumulation of pleats at the waist of these wide pants may have inspired the thousand-pleated pants worn on the other side of the Mediterranean. Credit: CPA Media Co
These folds had a double interest. First of all, they helped achieve the aesthetic canon of the time: by skirting the hips and thus adding volume, they visually refined a waist that was then wanted to be very thin.
In addition, they represented an ostentatious expense which distanced them from the basic pants that the people continued to wear. In fact , these folds took up excess fabric and required the know-how and time of a talented tailor , whereas the making of classic pants remained in principle within the reach of a good housewife.
The secret of their assembly was transmitted in specialized works, from L'Art du Tailleur by M. Compaing, published in 1828, to the Nouvelle Théorie de la Coupe , written by H.-C. of Byé in 1869.
PRACTICAL FOLDS
After being wide enough in the 1860s to be compared to "elephant's feet", pants came closer to the body again in the 1880s. However, if they were the new "tights", they no longer hugged the leg beyond the thigh and adopt a tubular shape.
Advertisement for the La Belle Jardinière stores, circa 1885. The young boy is wearing a school costume on which we can distinguish a clear side fold. Credit Collection IM KHARBINE TAPABOR
This new cut is accompanied by a defect that we still know today: a pocket that our movements (walking, sitting) form at the knee. When he talks about it in his book Des Modes et des Hommes , Farid Chenoune cites the example of Prince Frederick Leopold (of Prussia?) who, during a train journey, would have preferred to stay standing rather than see his pants "do knee ".
Portrait of a man, circa 1880-1885. The contrasts in the photograph clearly highlight the edge of the front crease of his dark pants. Credit Jean Vigne KHARBINE TAPABOR
To remedy this, an artificial, controlled fold is created on the fabric, initially starting from the knee only, before going up to the thigh. It allows the leg to bend without marking the fabric. It coexists with another type of fold, this one lateral, also structuring an ever stiffer masculine silhouette.
Full-length portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt, President Grover Cleveland, and Governor David R. Francis, 1903. If Roosevelt and Francis adopted the front fold, Cleveland seems to have preferred the side fold here. We can compare their fall and understand why the first ends up winning. Copyright: Vernon Lewis Gallery
Their adoption remains a matter of choice: in 1908 the daily newspaper Les Nouvelles tells us that President Fallières held “complete indifference to the whims of fashion […] it [did] matter little to him whether the crease of the pants was marked along its length or the width. Since his earliest childhood, [he wore] the bend at the knees.”
Cartoon drawing on Oxford Bags, circa 1925. We see that the tailor fold is marked. Credit IM KHARBINE TAPABOR
This had to be in the middle of the leg and this rule will not change. On July 15, 1936, Adam even devoted an article to how to alter pants if the crease did not fall straight on the instep.
Between the wars he joined others which are reminiscent of those of the years 1810-1820: the pincers . The front fold, today called the tailor fold, is always marked with an iron.
The darts are sewn at the waist. There are two types: “French pleats”, open towards the inside of the leg, “Italian folds”, more recent, turned towards the outside. The reason for these folds is also less aesthetic than practical. The 1920s were marked by a taste for looser, more comfortable volumes , which also had the advantage of fleshing out the thighs, at a time when the masculine ideal was athletic.
Photograph, circa 1925. The fashion for Oxford Bags, coming from British universities, was a peak in the size of trousers in the 1920s. Very short-lived, it nonetheless left a taste for comfortable volume. Copyright Imago United Archives University
Abundant around the leg, the fabric had to be gathered in a structured way around the waist by darts, in this context also called comfort pleats.
Ray Blogger on the set of Rosalie (1937). We notice the pinch pleats extended by the tailored pleats. Copyright: JT Vintage
This fashion became more discreet at the end of the Second World War, when young Americans, widely followed models, brought back from the front the habit of wearing pants without them. In the 1960s, while youth set the tone, clips were relegated to the wardrobe of mature men.
The low waist, now fashionable, is incompatible with them: if they do not fall higher than the hips they are condemned to gape without elegance. The tailored pleat, however, continues to be printed on most pants, with the exception of jeans, which are tight-fitting, and models in line with a unisex aesthetic from London, which is less stiff.
It was the 1980s and their desire for comfort that brought fullness and high waists back into fashion and with them pleats. Nevertheless, twenty years later fashion entered the era of " slim " and "skinny", inaugurated by creators such as Hedi Slimane, artistic director of Dior Homme from 2000 to 2007. According to legend, these are even his collections that would have motivated Karl Lagerfeld to undertake a diet.
Richard Gere in the film American Gigolo (1980). The actor is wearing white pleated pants here. Credit: 1980 Paramount Pictures
Today we are in a period of transition, as illustrated by Virgil Abloh's latest collection for Louis Vuitton. During “Fashion Week” its models presented tight pants, short or long, with or without tailored pleats, and baggies of unparalleled fullness.
A model of suit, much too large to make a pocket at the knee, remained marked with an iron on both legs. A clothing practice as immutable as this, after more than one hundred and twenty years of existence, raises questions.
POLISHED PLY
Today, as yesterday, a neat crease is a two-faced mark of social distinction. A sign of good behavior, it shows that one has mastered the codes of knowing how to dress and also testifies to a life far removed from physical work which would erase it. So men have always taken great care to preserve its figure, by various processes.
The most obvious is to take it to a dry cleaner. But you can also easily iron your pants yourself, thanks to the invention by Léo Trouilhet in 1913 of the first electric iron, marketed by Calor in 1917. In March 1924, Monsieur praised the merits of another invention: “Want to Do you always have an impeccable crease in your pants?
Advertisement for Calor irons, circa 1970. Photo credit ELZINGRE KHARBINE TAPABOR
Press it for a few minutes in the Deluchat system electric ironer . The object appeared as two boards held together by metal bars and screws between which the clothing could be slipped. Two years earlier, the same magazine taught its readers the art of folding them: “As far as pants are concerned, the first care is to be given to the fold that is formed by stretching the fabric as much as it is possible and ensuring that the movement to which the fatigue of the fabric may have caused it to lose its sharpness is reconstituted.
In order to avoid frequent ironing, it is necessary to carefully choose the fabric of your pants : avoid linen for example, and prefer semi-synthetic fibers, which have been very successful since the 1950s. As Farid recalled Chenoune, they have the double advantage of costing less and making clothing easier to maintain. Let us think of the “Everfix” permanent pleat pants, made of wool and polyester, which were “always impeccable” according to a 1964 advertisement.
In an article devoted in 2016 to ironing, Mina Remy noted all the ambiguity of it: with the iron in hand we erase “false” folds, uncontrolled and irregular, to create others, desired and controlled. The first testify to two unacceptable things: the lack of care, and, perhaps worse, the too visible presence of the body under the clothing.
Before an interview, an important meeting, or a simple day at the office: the right reflex. Credit: Imago Angle Man in Shirt
It is undoubtedly not insignificant that the tailored fold appeared at the time of high collars, hats and gloves worn from morning to evening, which contributed to its concealment. It is also not surprising that this practice was developed by the elite, as an additional distance from people of lower status: from the folds that the worker prints on his clothes through his work, the frame and the idle show those by which the dyer-launderer “straightened” their pants.
The suits we wear today are the heirs of these tensions. But if this famous tailored fold seems immutable, eternity is not guaranteed: it will only exist as long as a somewhat formal elegance is deemed necessary, if not appreciable.
As the suit and tie loses ground in offices and the steam of a hot shower increasingly serves as the only ironing, this survival may not be so long.
