Harem Pant (parachute pant)
Harem pants or harem trousers, also known as parachute pants, are women's baggy long pants tapered at the ankle, with side flaps on the hip that button at the waist area.
Harem pants, which originated in India, are like a cross between a skirt and a pair of skinny jeans. The legs, from the knees down, are fitted. The crotch area is loose and baggy as if it were cut to be a skirt.[1] Traditional harem pants can be extremely large and baggy, with a very wide and full fit, very roomy, loose fitting, oversized, puffy, spacious, with elastic in waist and at ankles, and with the crotch below the knee almost to the ground.
Harem pants are commonly worn with a pleated skirt — a short skirt that covers the top portion of the harem pants. Both harem pants and pleated skirts are commonly used in belly dancing. There are resources that show various forms of pleated skirts and explain how they are created.
They've also emerged as a "modern" version of harem pants made popular in the late 1980s by MC Hammer[2] and thus known as hammer pants (below). They are intended to be made more fashionable and require less fabric.
For all the fashion flak harem pants endure, at least they have a story to tell.
Fashion journalist and blogger Patty Huntington says the tulip-shaped trousers, also known as dhotis, were first worn by men in the deserts of northern Africa.
They originated with the Zouaves, military recruits to the French Army in the 19th Century, says Huntington. They were a desert pant, loose and comfortable.
The shape was championed by the suffragette movement as a release from the strictures of corsets and petticoats in the late 1800s.
Its main proponent, American Amelia Bloomer, became the trouser's namesake, despite failing to convince the women of her era they were better off wearing the pants.
Designer Paul Poiret embraced the shape in 1920s France, producing an orientalist collection of head dresses, kaftans, harem pants and lampshade silhouettes.
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| Paul Poiret Harem pant |
Huntington says the blowsy bottoms returned to popular culture in the 1960s and 70s. Talitha Getty was photographed in a pair of white harem pants on a rooftop in Morocco.
But it was American rap singer MC Hammer that gave the pant its most memorable outing, in a Mondrian palette of red, yellow, black and white.
Major fashion houses refer to the Harem pant in seasonal collections. A staple piece used in or around many fashion trends.
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| Fall 09 Balmain |
I enjoy your article on MC Hammer
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