12/04/2024
Copied from the Horse Network:
“I’m not saying the breeches of my younger days, say 1980-2000, were perfect, but they were designed for a generation of thick-skinned riders. Namby-pamby riders need not apply. Our riding pants were a zero-way-stretch affair with pant legs that ended mid-calf and fastened with newly popular Velcro that never quite closed. Imagine, if you will, enduring the 20-minute struggle of getting your leather boots on, only to find the pokey part of the Velcro closure rubbing against your skin whilst snagging on your nylons. We didn’t have time to take our boots off and put them back on, so we toughed it out. ‘Do your worst, Velcro,’ we’d say. And the Velcro did, rasping off little bits of skin until suitable divets were etched from our legs for it to rest for the day. Not only were things happening within our boots, but also just above the top of them. Due to the zero-way-stretch technology, our riding pants, aided by their leather knee patches, had the ability to press our precious kneecaps into unpredictable and unfavorable positions. Our coaches then, as they do now, yelled, ‘Quit gripping with your knees!’ and we, the hapless students, wondered, Then why are there leather knee patches on these stupid pants? Tradition, that’s why. The neat thing, other than the apparent uselessness of the aforementioned patches, was their constant ability to shrink in the wash due to a hot water oversight. This shrinkage meant that the material that sat beneath them would get bunched up and take to burrowing into the side of your knees. We also loved a side-zip breech because it meant we could also wear our belt sideways. Getting these pants done up was a tremendous way to isolate the exact location of your back pain. That quarter waist contort testing our desire for oxygen over fashion as we tucked things in, zipped things up, and got the belt perfectly off-center. I’m not saying that all these New Age breeches are for the birds, I’m just saying they appeal to the masses, whereas in my day, they appealed to the tall and slim. The rest of us just had to get on with it.”
Read Rebecca Berry’s historical account of breeches on Horse Network.
