Clothing Definitions — definitions of garments and clothing terms from Apparel Search
Pantalettes are undergarments covering the legs, worn in the early to mid nineteenth century. A form of leggings or long drawers, pantalettes originated in France in the 1820s and quickly spread to Britain and America. They could be one-piece garments or two separate garments, one for each leg, attached at the waist with buttons or laces. Most often made of white linen and decorated with tucks, lace, cutwork or broderie anglaise, ankle-length pantalettes were worn under the crinoline and hoop skirt, while children's and young girls' pantalettes, mid-calf to ankle length, were intended to show under shorter skirts.
Pantalettes are undergarments covering the legs worn by women, girls, and very young boys in the early- to mid-nineteenth century.
A form of leggings or long drawers, pantalettes originated in France in the 1820s and quickly spread to Britain and America. Pantalettes could be one-piece or two separate garments, one for each leg, attached at the waist with buttons or laces. They were most often of white linen fabric and could be decorated with tucks, lace, cutwork or broderie anglaise.
Ankle-length pantalettes for women were worn under the crinoline and hoop skirt to ensure that the legs were modestly covered. Pantalettes for children and young girls were mid-calf to ankle-length and were intended to show under their shorter skirts.
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| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pantalettes). 1/13/06 |
Pantalettes sit at an unusual point in clothing history, an undergarment that was partly meant to be seen. Long skirts hid the women's version almost completely, its ankle edge appearing only in movement, but the children's version was a visible part of the outfit, its white, lace-trimmed legs showing between a girl's short dress and her shoes as a sign of neat, careful dressing. That double role explains the decoration. Plain linen would have served for warmth and coverage, yet surviving pantalettes carry rows of fine tucks, inserted lace, cutwork and broderie anglaise at the hems, work that only makes sense on a garment whose lower edge was on display.
The separate-leg construction is the period detail modern readers find strangest. Under the wide, heavy skirts and the stays of the 1820s to 1860s, a closed one-piece undergarment was impractical, so each leg was made separately and buttoned or laced to a waistband, an arrangement shared with the drawers of the period. White linen was the standard fabric because it washed and boiled clean, wore hard, and stayed white, the colour of clean underlinen generally in the period. Cotton versions followed as cotton became cheaper. The garment's length tracked skirt fashion: as crinolines and hoop skirts widened and lifted at the hem in walking, ankle cover mattered more, and pantalettes lengthened and narrowed with the century.
Pantalettes faded as skirts narrowed, hems and undergarments changed, and the long drawer gave way to later underwear forms, but the word and the look survived in children's dress and in costume, where a lace-edged pantalettes hem under a short skirt still reads instantly as early to mid nineteenth century. For the clothing historian they are also a useful dating tool, since their length, fabric and decoration changed steadily across the decades they were worn, and museum examples are usually white linen or cotton with the decorated hem that was the garment's public face.
Pantalettes are undergarments covering the legs, worn in the early to mid nineteenth century. They are a form of leggings or long drawers, most often of white linen, and originated in France in the 1820s before spreading quickly to Britain and America.
Pantalettes could be a one-piece garment, or two separate garments, one for each leg, attached at the waist with buttons or laces. They were decorated with tucks, lace, cutwork or broderie anglaise, and the separate-leg form left the garment open between the legs under the skirts of the period.
Ankle-length pantalettes for women were worn under the crinoline and hoop skirt so the legs stayed covered beneath wide skirts. Pantalettes for children and young girls were mid-calf to ankle length and were intended to show below their shorter skirts, finished with the same lace and tuck decoration.