Hunting breeches

For any gentleman-farmer, knickers are an essential garment. These trousers, sometimes slightly baggy, which stop below the knee, are inseparable from a certain idea of hunting. However, few people know the origin of these trousers.

The word knickers comes from Knickerbocker, which was the name of a fictional character in the 19th century across the Atlantic. In 1809, Washington Irving (1783-1859) wrote a short story titled: A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. It is a satire of the political milieu and local elites. Just before its publication, Washington Irving had amused himself by sending fake missing person notices to several New York newspapers concerning a certain Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, a Dutch historian by profession, fond of these trousers that came just below the knees.

This literary work was quite successful, and the term knickerbocker passed into common language to designate the inhabitants of Manhattan. So much so that a basketball team, the New-Yorkers Knickerbockers, better known by the surname Knicks, borrowed this name for their team.

At the beginning of the 20th century, knickers became the ideal garment for outdoor activities: hunting, golf, skiing, mountaineering... However, they should not be confused with golf breeches, worn by a famous Belgian reporter, which are longer and baggier. Then, like all fashion, knickers disappeared from the radar screens from the 1940s, with classic trousers, as we know them today, becoming definitively established.

Why wear knickers?

Tweedchasse cares little for fashion. As Gustave Thibon so aptly put it, "being in vogue: a dead leaf's ambition." Because knickers are the hunting trousers par excellence, practical and elegant. Practical because they allow true freedom of movement, which is the hallmark of good trousers, without fear of rubbing against the boot. Elegant in their aesthetics and the material from which they are made. At Tweedchasse, we offer you this essential garment in tweed, cotton, corduroy, buffalo leather, deer leather...

What a choice to be this gentleman of the fields. An ideal to which we all aspire.