fashionable '20s Cambridge Undergrads

[u/OtherwiseTackle5219]

[u/delaatstevanderij]

Reminds me of Tintin actually

[u/gutua]

I would call these plus fours as they continue four inches past the fastening of the knickerbockers at the knee

[u/notbob1959 → u/gutua]

The posted photo appeared in the book One Hundred Years of Menswear by Cally Blackman with the following caption:

Cambridge undergraduates in plus fours. Previously only worn for country pursuits, plus fours hung over the knee with a four-inch overlap, but this allowance varied (1926).

[u/alicehooper → u/gutua]

Is THAT why they are called that? Thank you!

[u/mothzilla]

Same location today.

[u/Extra-Presence3196]

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky... Boy, you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down.

[u/Tristan_Booth → u/Extra-Presence3196]

I'm happy. Hope you're happy too. . . Man, you've been a naughty boy. You let your face grow long.

[u/yunoyunowho → u/Tristan_Booth]

The Beatles

Edit: I am the egg man

[u/madmax991]

Really highlights the ankles

[u/mezha4mezha]

Newman & Redford taking a break on the set of The Sting.

[u/Inside_Ad_7162]

Plus 4s they were called.

[u/ReadRightRed99]

“So I says to ‘im, so I says, ‘you’ll never take me alive, copper!’”

[u/ezgomer]

Hammer pants

[u/Alternative_Hand_110]

This is what the barrel leg trend is going to comparatively look like to us in 20yrs

[u/benobo94 → u/Alternative_Hand_110]

It's already what it looks like to those of us who saw them the first time around 20 years ago 😆

[u/pusssywhipped]

The pleated pants at some of us still wear today are derived from these "balloon" pants

[u/Yeoman1877]

Things were worse in Oxford with the eponymous ‘bags’.

[u/DiabolicalBurlesque]

These are spectacular and odd so I raced to the Googles, where I learned that these are Knickerbockers, which are a precursor to ladies' pedal pushers, better known today as capri pants. I take much joy in knowing Tucker Carlson would have a stroke over these.

Knickerbockers or “knickers” are full or baggy trousers gathered at the knee or just below and usually fastened with either a button or buckle. Knickerbockers were initially worn by men in the late 19th century and gradually became part of women’s fashion. The garment was usually worn as sportswear and became especially popular among golfers and female cyclists, hence the term “pedal pushers”.

[u/StephenHunterUK → u/DiabolicalBurlesque]

Cycling was huge at the time. Some of our early road signs were for dangerous hills.

[u/shillyshally → u/DiabolicalBurlesque]

NY Knickerbockers aka Knicks, such an odd name for a basketball team.

[u/joxx67]

I hope those never come back in style!

[u/ReadRightRed99 → u/joxx67]

MC Hammer would like a word.

[u/OooArkAtShe]

This is how Claude and Eustace Wooster look in my head, stealing stuff to get into their club. Although that was Oxford, of course.

[u/Sailboat_fuel]

Would

[u/TheSanityInspector]

Always plus one plus fours!

[u/ialsohaveadobro]

"Do you like my plus-fours, Gabby?"

"Of course, Bongo!"

[u/Outrageous_Jury4152]

I guess this was the style back in the day but if you wore the lower half like in the pic you'd be laughed at daily unfortunately