The Economist on the history of the battledress of the world’s businessmen. Here is where your pants come from:
“[Beau] Brummel is credited in some quarters with inventing modern trousers, a garment more widespread even than the suit and with a provenance equally hard to pin down. He is said to have adapted the long cavalry pantaloons favoured by the 10th Light Dragoons as a replacement for the knee-length breeches and stockings that were then commonplace. But other military antecedents are plausible, too. Patrick Grant, who owns Norton & Sons, a tailor established in 1806, says trousers were developed from Russian Cossack cavalry “overalls”, leggings that came over the boot, some time in the early 19th century.”
The history of that hideous uniform is just a recent blip, rooted in the military tradition. It makes you feel like a Dragoon or a Cossack. Down with the pants!