Tobi trousers

Two workers wearing tobi pants

Tobi trousers or tobi pants are a type of baggy pants used as a common uniform of tobi shokunin, construction workers in Japan who work on high places (such as scaffolding and skyscrapers).[1] 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), often brightly colored.[2]

According to a spokesperson for Toraichi, a major manufacturer of worker's clothes of this style, the style was developed from knickerbockers. The regular knickerbocker-style pants are called nikka zubon ("zubon" means "trousers," and "nikka" or "nikka-bokka" is a gairaigo-transformation of the word "knickerbockers"). The excessively widened ones are called chocho zubon.[1] This style has also entered popular fashion,[3] as evidenced by the emergence of toramani ("Toraichi maniacs"), die-hard fans of Toraichi trousers.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Baggy trousers", Japan Times, December 20, 2005
  2. ↑ Catalog of tobi clothes, tobi.jp
  3. ↑ Japanese Construction Worker Fashion, PingMag, 18 January 2006


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