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Quizzing the Anonymous
Ignoramus et ignorabimus
On belts, pants and logic 
20th-Jan-2013 03:57 pm
Comments to the previous post informed me that it was illogical of Paleolithic men to walk on freezing ground without shoes.

I can't agree more, but logic is not the strongest point of our species. Consider the simplest thing: a belt in the trousers. Incidentally, belt is the second accessory for which there is a special morning blessing, so the two articles are closely related.

Our past is distinguished with monumental achievements. The Renaissance produced incomparable art, Kepler discovered elliptic orbits, Newton explained them, there was the Age of Reason, then the Age of Progress, geniuses created grand theories and masterpieces, and yet no one figured out tying their trousers with belts. The belts have been worn for many millennia. So have been the trousers. In all of these millennia no one did the logical thing of tying trousers with belts.


Logic or no logic, the fact remains that it was easier to develop special and general relativity than to imagine trousers secured with leather belts inserted into belt loops. That does not, however, mean that pre-20th century pants have been dropping off. Trousers were highly cut and waist-fitted to the contours of their wearers, as such tailoring adjustments cost pennies. Then, in the 1820s suspenders have been invented. From then onwards, even mass manufactured trousers could be worn without individual fitting (though tailors’ services still cost pennies).

These trousers were cut very high, which made belts impractical. No one made pants with loops or used belts to tie their trousers. Pants with belt loops could have been made in prehistoric times. Yet they were not. The 19th century cowboys could have displayed those huge brass buckles on their wide leather belts that one sees in the Hollywood movies. They did not. These movies are as faithful to history as the ones showing pre-historic men in hippie outfits and leather boots. Still "everyone knows that cowboys wore humongous brass buckles on their belts." There is a whole industry of authentic cowboy belts and buckles. Wearing such accessories seems to be a logical thing for a cowboy to do. The real cowboys did not know about that and wore suspenders.

So why do we do the logical thing?

The change in trousers was fostered by two developments. One was the WWI. Mass production of uniforms for nationally conscripted armies in the time of war shortages forced national governments to trim as much material as possible. The trousers were made with such a low cut that suspenders became loose, and they needed to tie these funny trousers with a wide belt that was worn over the coat. Men discharged from the army got used to this silly fashion. Because the belts did not sit well on trousers, belt loops were introduced in the early 1920s. The second development was the demise of waistcoat that was hiding suspenders. They became visible, which was unacceptable (see below).

The reason the governments needed to economize even on the cheapest materials (hence the disgusting military uniforms of the 20th century) is that millions of ordinary people were drafted into the armies, where they perished by millions in the machine-gun crossfire, displaying their gut on the barbed wire. This, of course, is the heritance of the glorious French Revolution with its achievement of citizens at arms: the nation-states engaged into the war of mutual annihilation in the name of the higher goals. The war became total, and patriotic citizenry in belted uniforms provided the fodder for cannons. In this sense, the belted trousers were inevitable. They are the very essence of modernity, crowning 300 years of advanced political thought.

Not so the waistcoat. It was introduced by King Charles II as the court dress during the Restoration. The king was impressed by the vest worn by a Persian Ambassador, and he decided to respond to this Oriental challenge. From his court the waistcoat fashion spread to the aristocratic circles of Europe. After a 100+ years of wearing, the waistcoat was well on the way out, but then the fate interfered. During the French Revolution the liberated masses demanded the privilege of aristocratic waistcoats, and so these good-for-nothing Persian imports became democratic. In the early 1820s, as slim waist and corsets became fashionable among the military, the officers started to mask their corsets and the suspenders with these back-to-fashion waistcoats, for lack of a better idea. As the officers were the model of manhood, civilians re-adopted them, too. When these brave, slim-waist officers perished in the bloodbath of the WWI, their waistcoats became to be seen as the integral part of the folly of the ruling classes, and so they went into steady decline. By WWII, when another wave of war-related shortages hit the civilized world, the waistcoats almost completely disappeared.

OK, but why would suspenders be verboten without the waistcoats? Because suspenders were considered to be undergarments to be hidden from the view, like women's garter belts. As late as 1938 there were places in the US legally forbidding the display of suspenders in public as indecent exposure. The historical reason for that is that the suspenders were closely associated with the corsets worn by men, which is, to call it plainly, an exercise in body engineering.

I’d say that starting the day by buckling belts in our trousers is neither logical nor is it entirely illogical. It is what we do; it reminds us what kind of beings we are.

The great political thought of our wisest men created the unusual conditions, in which alone "the logical thing" became marginally logical. In less enlightened times, no such thing would be necessary. The cost of this logical thing was measured in two world wars and millions of human lives. The inhuman logic of the nation state met a very human concern about looking one’s best, that drove some men to body engineering, which created an association between suspenders and undergarments; that was their undoing a century later. The folly of these men was not greater than the folly of any other men, but the belated revenge against them combined with the queer cultural traditions initiated by these same men gave us our belted trousers.

Blessed be the one who girds Israel with strength.

We need this strength to survive yet another such "logical thing." There have been too many of them lately...

20th-Jan-2013 10:07 pm (UTC) - ну куда Вы идете с этой серией??
интересно же.

про подтяжки и ковбоев даже сейчас правда - у "настоящих" ковбоев именноподтяжки, особенно после 45-50 лет. у псевдоковбоев и у молодняка - пряжки.


второй раз этот мессидж..
20th-Jan-2013 11:09 pm (UTC)
К сл. пункту программы, разумеется.
Про шапку у меня много чего есть наболевшего сказать, трудно выбрать что-либо одно.

Мне говорили, что на ЖЖ дамы взахлеб пишут о кофточках, туфельках. Я так надеялся прочитать какую-нибудь захватывающую историю вроде Золушки. Не тут-то было... То про педофилов, то про зоофилов.
20th-Jan-2013 11:16 pm (UTC)
я могу про сюмочки, с туфельками у меня швах, не очень интересуют. а про фапотьки очень интересно.. прочитала про очистилтельную силу тюрбана...


наверное у кепки тоже есть очистительное сило..
20th-Jan-2013 10:15 pm (UTC)
Очень, очень здорово и интересно.
21st-Jan-2013 12:35 am (UTC)
Thank you!
21st-Jan-2013 02:50 am (UTC)
Very interesting.

Except, it takes about 30 seconds to search for "cowboy 1880" on Google Images search and observe a cowboy with... a belt and a buckle. On a contemporary photograph. Duh.
21st-Jan-2013 03:06 am (UTC)
It is a gun belt. May be you should spent more than 30 seconds on Google before sharing your sarcasms.
(Deleted comment)
21st-Jan-2013 05:07 am (UTC)
I've already asked you not to comment in my journal. Please, pester someone else with your non sequitur.
21st-Jan-2013 04:21 am (UTC)
Here are turn of last century photos - not that far from Hollywood :)

21st-Jan-2013 04:58 am (UTC)
With one possible exception it is all gun belts.

There were belted pants before 1900 for firemen volunteers, so they could change quickly. There was also a short lived fad for such firemen belts in the summer of 1893.
21st-Jan-2013 05:53 am (UTC)
I'd say at least two exceptions - two guys in the middle in the second photograph have belts through their
belt loops as much as I can see
21st-Jan-2013 06:55 am (UTC)
Sorry, I do not see it in the photos. I see a belt with a buckle, but no loops, and I am not sure that the belt is not a gun belt. There were some civil war uniforms worn with belts. As far as I can make it out, belts were very rare until the 1920s. What now passes as cowboy buckles is from the 1950s.
21st-Jan-2013 04:50 pm (UTC)
Here's an enlargement: http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,36919.msg471949.html#msg471949

One category of people that did wear belts back in 1890s were baseball players. They were a part of the baseball uniform. Naturally, few cowboys would be caught dead with one of these things on them, but there must have been exceptions.

I was able to find a few more examples from the Old West. They were surely not very common.

(from this page: http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php?topic=20388.0)

The first one is an army man, but they say belt loops appeared on the uniform pants in 1904, and the photograph is from 1890s. So he must be using both a trouser belt sans loops, and a gun belt.

Edited at 2013-01-21 04:57 pm (UTC)
22nd-Jan-2013 03:26 am (UTC)
Many thanks for the photographs. I know about the baseball players, I've read that before (there are also firemen). This 1905 photo might be mis-dated, it does not look like 1905 to me, although neither does it looks like the 1920s. I would place it to right before the WWI, but I am not a specialist.

In the first photo it does look like a genuine belt, but in the second one I think it is a gun belt or a flask belt: very narrow. But even such ambiguous photos are quite rare. Good job.
21st-Jan-2013 05:08 am (UTC)
With one possible exception it is all gun belts.

21st-Jan-2013 07:17 pm (UTC)
There is a typical 'modern' belt around the unicorn in the 'Unicorn in Captivity,' which dates from 1495–1505

22nd-Jan-2013 03:17 am (UTC)
I do not see the trousers, sorry...
22nd-Jan-2013 03:27 am (UTC)
I realize you are talking about belt loops in trousers now. I thought you were talking about belt closures in general. But to be honest, holding up trousers with belts kind of sucks. I do it when dressed casually but I never have belt loops put on any suit trousers I have tailored for me. Suspender buttons only. On the inside of the waistband.
22nd-Jan-2013 03:38 am (UTC)
You are the kindred spirit. Of course it sucks, how can it not suck? Men fashions went down the tubes over the last 500 years.
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