Lets talk about pants

So, in my usual method of garb creation, I've started with a half remembered reference and jumped into my project. I've begun practicing block printing on bigger items and thought I should start with a ~2m bit of fabric because then I could make it into pants. Because, you know, you can never have enough pants.

 

Anyway, I've now block-printed half the fabric and I couldn't remember if the original reference looked like the diagonal strips both trended the same way or opposite ways. i.e. do I need to change orientation half way through the print to make a V shape or can I get away with //// all over?

Cue many many hours of trolling through manuscripts trying to find diagonal prints!

Here are some findings and comments thus far:

Some Safavid pants to start...

 

Folio 155r, British Library. MS 6613. Pants appear to have a dark stripe over blue, red and black diamond pattern. The diamond pattern is offset in the right leg which suggests an alternate construction method where the pale fabric is sewn together out of isosceles triangles, allowing the pants to gently increase in size with every rotation. Given I'm not very good at sewing, I think this would only happen if you were short on fabric, otherwise just gather / pattern to taper to the ankles.

 

Folio 184v, British Library. MS 6613. Pants worn by the Greek Princess. Same manuscript so artistic style is unlikely to change however these appear to have aligned triangles and alternating gold and grey bands. I wondering if the white dots are dyed, pearls, embroidery or spangles?

  

Woman holding a daisy. Herat (Afghanistan) Safavid. 1570-1578m. The Met Museum,   55.121.42. Diagonals again but such detail on the closeup! The fabric is fantastic and does suggest the entire piece is either diagonal stripes or vertical and the pants are cut on the bias. Cutting them on the bias would provide some stretch.

 

Christian Maiden dies. 1600 Iran. The Met Museum. Folio 22v. Accession no. 63.210.22. Look at that splendid acanthus print!

 Woman nursing a child. Bibliotheque Nationale Paris. folio 23r. Arabe 5847. Glorious colour combination and multiple foliages. It looks like these would fall into horizontal strips should she stand up.

Skipping to the Mughul culture now because when it comes to pants, I'm not picky.

 These are the pants of Princess Jahanara, painted in 1632. British Library, Add Or 3129. Folio 13v. I am really taken with these pants, the strips are fantastic! Unfortunately, the geometry doesn't work well. We see three red stripes at the ankle, which becomes 6-8 at the waist. We see no narrowing of stripes up the leg suggesting all stripes must either be cut off or gather/taper. To achieve this look, the fabric must be cut to ensure excess stripes on the front and back are cut to terminate on the inner thigh. Even then, superior tailoring is required to taper the cut from the hips up to the waist.

Lady with a narcissus. 1631-1633.  British Library, Add Or 3129 folio 34r. Take a moment and admire this spectacular pair of pants. Yellow with blue mangos? outlined in red, with a blue framing pattern. Splendid!

I'll leave this collection there as there are many many pants down this particular rabbit hole. For now, I believe i have sufficient justification for horizontal, vertical and diagonal stripes. There is no supporting evidence, yet, of stripes that originate on the inside ankle with one leg clockwise and the other counter-clockwise so for now, I shall make the stripes all go one direction.