knee breeches of france from 1595-1610

[Isenbrant Blackaert]

any one know of a good pattern out there that's free and is fairly simple to do?

[InsaneIrish]

Can you elborate on what a knee breech is? Pics?

[Bob H]

See if your library has, or can get, Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion. The patterns are printed on a grid so you can scale them up to actual size, and there are lots of pictures of extant garments.

[Isenbrant Blackaert]

Bob H, I've read that book unfortunately I don't drive an can rarely get the wife into the city to get to the library.

InsaneIrish, knee length pants.

[Konstantin the Red]

Pilgrim pants, Irish. A late evolution of European male legwear which all through medieval times tended to covering most of the leg with hose that more or less resembled thick stockings, and then something separate from the hose about the hips, descending to various levels along the thigh. Either the upper garment had a skirt, or there was something there functionally quite like a pair of shorts. There seemed no interest in one-piece full length legwear at all.

By the sixteenth century, trousers were developing from trunkhose, which came in varied lengths and styles -- paned slops, pluderhosen, and so on. There seems an overall tendency for these to go longer and longer with time. Pearlike hips and a smooth outline and going to just below the knee, left open, were characteristic of the "Venetians" pants, just before knee breeches proper really started to come in. I think co10broek is wearing Venetians in SirMendor's "Fencers, show" thread.

These breeches, unlike Venetians, fastened closed below the kneecap, and fashion had them in various degrees of ease about thighs and butt depending on the time. Here was the seventeenth century, and here were the Pilgrims -- who were notable for minimizing any extravagance in clothing, quite in contrast to the male peacockery in lace and swashtopped boots that swanked about in the early seventeenth. Some of those getups look hard to walk in. Knee britches continued for upwards of two hundred years more, and throwback forms persisted almost two hundred years after that -- plus-fours, for instance, which are just easy knee breeches with an extra four inches' length.

[Dansknecht]

What you're looking for are called "Venetian Hose" or simply "Venetians." They were popular from (roughly) the 1560's into the early 17th century, and seem to have evolved into the sort of knee breeches worn in the 18th century and beyond. Other than the full-length cut fabric hosen worn in the first half of the 16th century, , perhaps some kinds of pluderhose, sailor's "slops," and galligaskins (very, very full Venetians), they were the only sort of breeches worn during the late 16th century that ended below the knee (directly below it). Other types (trunkhose/roundhose/canions/etc.) ended above it.

Venetians for the most part had a button fly (some may have had hooked closures, codpieces were not worn on them), were somewhat full and pleated/gathered into a waistband, and tapered down to the knee (a leg band is not needed, but they may be fastened on the inner leg with a pair of hooks and eyes/a single button, or tied on the outer leg). Venetians also might have side pockets. Venetians did not have panes, but may have small slashed/pinked designs.

I'll see if I can find a pattern for it online, but this website gives you a pretty good idea of what they should look like once completed. Though their maker used a codpiece, a lace-up front, and a possibly inaccurate fabric, the basic shape looks right.

http://www.geocities.com/lia_de_thorneg ... tians.html

For the time period you're looking at, the waistband should also feature a row of eyelet holes to lace the breeches to your doublet.

EDIT: Here's the basic pattern! http://tinyurl.com/bhfqlz