Not to derail the current discussion, because I think it’s heading in an interesting direction and I’m curious to see what Cimrandir arrives at, buuuuut...
A few weeks back on Facebook there was a gentleman who posted A fairly detailed breakdown of his Ithilien Ranger kit to a Tolkien cosplay group, and the trousers he was wearing jumped right out at me! I figured I would share them with the folks here, as well as the sources he mentioned for them. (In actual fact, I directed him to the forums, and I believe he put in an application, but I don’t know if he’s really been around since).
The trousers in question are technically Cossack stirrup trousers of the 16th century, and they are exactly what they sound like - narrow-legged trousers with a simple drawstring waist, stirrup feet - and get this - POCKETS!
Here is a rather silly picture of the gentleman in question modeling them:
- 35746F54-4783-4D3E-B6CC-B9033CEA73F6.jpeg (105.92 KiB) Viewed 9077 times
And here is the documentation he provided when I inquired:
https://xviic.blogspot.com/2015/03/xvi. ... hkHyBhI_fk
And...
https://xviic.blogspot.com/2016/08/blog ... yykbjxB3YA
I haven’t dug TOO deep into it yet, but I’m extremely tempted to base my new Ranger pants on these when I finally do get around to actually making them.
Now, based on the previous discussion I completely understand why folks seem to be tending towards shorter breeches in the style of Roman braccae or 17th-19th C. short breeches, at least in terms of this conversation - and I certainly think there is a lot of merit to that, particularly in terms of the utility of such a garment when it comes to crossing streams and so forth - but for my part, personally, I still see longer, tightly fitting trousers as better matching my overall idea of the ranger silhouette - and stirrup legs are a big help when it comes to wearing tall boots.
The cut of these fascinates me, because they are one-piece legs, similar to older hosen, and then of course there are the pockets, which I am extremely enamored of (The less I have to carry around in waist pouches these days the better, to be honest - especially if it’s modern junk like keys and cell phones).
Anyway, just thought I’d throw it out there!