Knickerbockers (clothing)

Knickerbockers or knickers are a form of men's or boys' baggy-kneed trousers particularly popular in the early 20th century United States. Golfers' plus twos and plus fours are breeches of this type. Before World War II, skiers often wore knickerbockers too, usually ankle-length.

Until after World War I, in many English-speaking countries, boys customarily wore short pants in summer and knickerbockers ("knickers" or "knee pants") in winter. (In British English knickers means underwear worn by women.) At the onset of puberty, they graduated to long trousers. In that era, the transition to "long pants" was a major rite of passage. See, for example, the classic song "Blues in the Night" by Johnny Mercer: "My mammy done told me, when I was in knee-pants, my mammy done told me, son...".

Baseball players wear a stylized form of knickerbockers, although the pants have become less baggy in recent decades and some modern ballplayers opt to pull the trousers close to the ankles. The white trousers worn by American football officials are knickerbockers, and while they have become less baggy, they are still worn ending shortly below the knee. In recent years, the NFL has equipped its officials with long trousers rather than knickers in cold weather.

The name "Knickerbocker" first acquired meaning with Washington Irving's History of New York, which featured the fictional author Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old-fashioned Dutch New Yorker in Irving's satire of chatty and officious local history. In fact, Washington Irving had a real friend named Herman Knickerbocker (1779–1855), whose name he borrowed. Herman Knickerbocker, in turn, was of the upstate Knickerbocker clan, which descended from a single immigrant ancestor, Harmen Jansen van Wijhe Knickerbocker. Jansen van Wijhe invented the name upon arriving in New Amsterdam and signed a document with a variant of it in 1682.

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