Misplaced Pages

Tobi trousers

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Nikka zubon) Style of Japanese trousers designed to be worn with split-toed boots

Two workers wearing tobi pants and jika-tabi boots

Tobi trousers or tobi pants (Japanese: 鳶ズボン) are a type of baggy pants used as a common uniform of tobi shokunin (鳶職とびしょく), construction workers in Japan who work on high places (such as scaffolding and skyscrapers). The pants are baggy to a point below the knees, abruptly narrowing at the calves so as to be put into the footwear: high boots or jika-tabi (tabi-style boots).

According to a spokesperson for Toraichi, a major manufacturer of worker's clothes of this style, the style was developed from knickerbockers which were part of Japanese military uniform during World War II. The regular knickerbocker-style pants are called "nikka zubon" ("zubon" meaning "trousers" and "nikka" or "nikka-bokka", a gairaigo transformation of the word "knickerbockers"). The excessively widened ones are called chocho zubon. This style has also entered popular fashion, as evidenced by the emergence of toramani ("Toraichi maniacs"), die-hard fans of Toraichi trousers.

References

  1. ^ "Baggy trousers", The Japan Times, December 20, 2005.
  2. Gordenker, Alice (20 December 2005). "Baggy trousers". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 9 February 2009.
  3. Kurashima, Kyoko (18 January 2006). "Japanese Construction Worker Fashion". PingMag. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015.


Stub icon

This fashion-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories: