THE JOURNAL
The world has changed a lot in the last 100 years. In fact, it took less than 70 years to go from the first powered flight to landing on the Moon. We put wheels on suitcases. We’ve had nine different (live action) Batman films. If you asked an economist to explain this last century, they might look at a graph of real GDP. An engineer could consider the development of semiconductors. What if instead we looked at the evolution of trousers?
From wide to straight leg, flared to skinny; every decade has an identifying trouser silhouette. Trousers can even be an indicator of prosperity or recession. The “hemline index” has been used to chart consumer behaviour through the size and shape of our pants, like points plotted on a graph. Whether dictated by culture or economics, our silhouette is never an accident.
01. When trousers went (really) wide
Oxford bags. Photograph by Smith Archive
A look at trousers from a century ago reveals a turning point in men’s fashion: Oxford bags. The confusing name was likely a reference to their spectacular width, a silhouette that might be mistaken for a laundry bag. First seen on English university campuses, they became a global phenomenon by the mid-1920s. Their popularity, however, was not without controversy.
During WWI, wool rationing had made trousers relatively narrow through the leg. The general guide was that no man should accept a pair they could get into with their shoes on. Oxford bags, however, had a hem that ballooned over footwear. So, when defiant students began wearing them, it was an affront to what was expected of any aspiring gentleman. The trousers would be stolen and thrown in trees on campuses; they were forbidden in Soviet Russia and became a reason for arrest in Turkey and Japan.
This backlash wasn’t just about style – it was part of a generational tension. Critics said Oxford bags represented a crisis in masculinity for their skirt-like silhouette and impracticality. In her recent research paper, “Modern Monstrosities”, the fashion historian Summer Anne Lee notes that the trousers “embodied the youthful desire to rebel against pre-war norms”. The war was over – and the new generation were creating an original image for themselves.
While Oxford bags remained on the fringes, they helped broaden the Overton window for trousers. “Although the size of true Oxford bags was considered too wide, under their influence a slightly wider cuff was provided for young male clientele wanting to approach the Oxford look without going to the extremes that might have caused ridicule,” Lee writes. Bags had moved the dial and by the 1930s, wide-leg trousers had become the dominant style.
02. Then, they tapered
Elvis Presley in “Follow That Dream” (1962). Photograph by Everett Collection Inc
The 1950s were a time of optimism and economic boom. Trousers were still high-waisted and roomy, but legs tapered at the ankle. Another generation had made it through another world war and men were adopting a more casual style.
Restrictions on materials returned during WWII along with a ban on pleats to take some width out of pants. Then the rise of jazz music and swing dancing created a demand for trousers with tapered ankles you won’t trip over mid-step. By the middle of the 20th century, this style had become mainstream.
Meanwhile, jeans were making their way into the weekend wardrobe. They entered the fray, seen on the likes of James Dean in 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause and Elvis Presley. Men’s wardrobes were being shaped not just by how they dressed for work, but how they let loose.
03. Who set off the flare?
Oscar Issac in New York City, 16 April 2026. Photograph by Raymond Hall/GC Images
By the tail-end of the 1960s, a main-character trouser had entered the arena. Bell-bottoms would go on to change the landscape of menswear. Best remembered for appearances in ABBA music videos and Earth, Wind and Fire album covers, the flared pant became synonymous with the 1970s.
This silhouette has traceable origins, too. The bell-bottom was originally mass produced for the US Navy – the width at the ankle made them easy for sailors to roll up when there was water on deck. After WWII, thousands of surplus sailor pants were donated to charity shops across the country… And washed up in San Francisco in particular.
Hippies and Vietnam War protestors bought up these deadstock trousers and wore them often as a political statement; the ubiquity of the silhouette brought flares into the mainstream. The free-love movement, disco scene and glam rock all embraced the trend as quickly as manufacturers could chop polyester into bell-bottoms.
By the late 1970s, punk had latched onto a grittier world view. Flares disappeared just as fast as they had risen, to be replaced by narrow drainpipe trousers, whether denim, leather or tartan. Music was rapidly diversifying, with each genre picking a different style of pants to identify with.
04. Trouser fragmentation sets in
Wu-Tang Clan in New York, April 1997. Photograph by Bob Berg/Getty Images
In the 1980s and 1990s, a culture of celebrity, music videos and television sitcoms took over and trousers became symbols of individuality. Disciples of Seinfeld could appreciate the everyman anti-fashion of the high-waisted dad jeans. They’d be laughed at by hip-hop fans, who wore baggy denim and tracksuits. Neither would understand the distressed, slim-fit jeans worn by grunge music stars such as Kurt Cobain.
For the first time, there was no right answer. Pants became a pledge of allegiance to a wider movement and a rejection of something else. Functionality was less important and, as manufacturing only got easier, more styles were readily available.
05. So, where are we now?
Dior SS05 men’s show during Paris Fashion Week, 5 July 2004. Photograph by Jean-Pierre Muller/AFP via Getty Images
A singular style would take over again. The skinny jean was ubiquitous by the mid-2000s and would remain so for a good decade. Designer Hedi Slimane is largely credited with the trend, unveiling them in 2005 under Dior Homme, before continuing the style with SAINT LAURENT. The jeans, 17cm wide at the ankles (a third of the size of the Oxford bags of 80 years before), would dominate. For a period, they were the only style you would see.
Identifying the trousers of today is not as straightforward as you would think. Social media creators might tell you that “skinny is out, baggy is in”, and while wide-leg pants are popular, gone are the monocultures of previous decades. Take a seat at a train station and you will see men in baggy cargo pants and tailored wool trousers, skinny jeans and barrel-leg denim.
All of these came from somewhere. Military bases, university campuses, jazz halls or the suburbs. Wide pants were in, and then out, then in again. If Oxford bags revealed that culture was shifting and flares told us rebellion could go mainstream, then maybe the fact there’s no single trouser style today tells us something, too.