We Wear No Pants: When Men Wore Dresses

From the flowing chitons of ancient Greece and the robes of Rome to Scottish kilts, Middle Eastern garments, and the horseback cultures that popularized trousers, this episode explores the long and surprising history of men in dresses, robes, skirts, and draped clothing—and how pants slowly became associated with masculinity in the modern West.

Along the way, we trace the rise of trousers across the Eurasian Steppe, the narrowing of masculine fashion during the industrial age, and the cultural forces that transformed clothing from practical garments into symbols of identity and gender.

Because the history of fashion is rarely as fixed—or as natural—as we imagine.

In this episode of The Threads of History, Theodore Alexander explores masculinity, robes, kilts, trousers, drag performance, historical menswear, and the strange evolution of what society considers “normal” clothing for men.