Most of the garments that we dress do not have its origin in the world of fashion, but in the needs of the human being at a given time in history.The objective has often had to do with guaranteeing comfort in a certain task, whether work, war or activities such as hunting or sports.

History leaves us signs of garments and accessories that were not destined to the public that looks today.Many, for example, were born to be used by men and, over time, have become exclusive to women.Others have ended up having a unisex use.And there are those that in their origin lacked differentiated gender and over the years they ended up winning it.

Height leotards

Jules Léotard was born in Toulouse in 1838.I unsuccessfully tried to study law.But life had kept a trapezoid and wool socks to go down in history.He began working in a circus and became an acrobat of world fame by inventing the flying trapeze, with which he undertook amazing feats.

For his exercises, the trapezista needed a garment that would allow him total freedom of movement in the heights.Thus, he started using a wool dense mesh that caused a monumental stir in nineteenth -century society, hit by that piece totally adjusted to the body.

The mesh allowed to guess without much imagination the physical enviable of the acrobat, which already conquered hearts wherever it passed.The leotard stayed forever with the surname of its creator, although its current male use is almost reduced to ballet professionals.

Heels for war

Power, sensuality, eroticism...The symbology of heels is profuse and is linked to female sex.But at first it was not like that.Heel shoes were born by strategic need.The hititas, civilization that developed between the seventeenth and twelfth centuries to.C., settled in the Anatolia Peninsula, they were a warrior town.The members of their army incorporated them into their clothing in order to affirm the foot to the stability of the horse, gain stability and leave both hands free to handle the arch.

The Sun King signed a shoemaker who indicated that he made his heels in red to denote his status

In the Middle Ages, the men and women of wealthy classes carried footcags, with which they avoided stepping on the dirt from the ground and, at the same time, they managed to keep the low of clothing clean.But that were platforms, for using a current term.The heel as such, that differentiating element that the Hittites carried, began to enter Western Europe at the end of the 16th century, when the SAH of Persia Abbas and sent a series of diplomatic delegations to try to establish ties with their rulers.The taste for the oriental became fashionable in Europe, and that exotic so masculine shoes jumped from armies to the field of aesthetics.

Soon they began to be seen in the courts.And, although it was not the first to use them, the heels of Louis XIV of France won their headline in history.The Sun King incorporated them into his wardrobe as a symbol of masculinity, power and privilege.He signed a shoemaker named Nicholas Lestage, who indicated that they were made in red to denote his status.And in 1670 he promulgated an edict that established that only the nobles could carry heels.

Since then, the story of this type of footwear has run in a coming and going between female and masculine cabinets.At the end of the 17th century, also in the French court, women already used them in models much more similar to the current ones.It was then that the differences by sex began to be introduced: men's heels were more square and robust, and those of women, higher and more curved.

With the illustration and the new respect for the rational and the utilitarian, the male sex was gradually abandoning the heels, although he never did it completely.The so -called Cuban heel (the cowboy boots) has continued present to this day and has been a sign of some international pop and rock stars.

Of men in unisex

Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs...For centuries, men and women shared clothes such as robes, togas and skirts.But there are some archaeological references that place the first pants in Celtic culture.The Germanic peoples also wore them, with fabrics that dyed stripes and paintings.The Romans, meanwhile, identified this garment with the barbarians and, in the year 397, Emperor Honorio prohibited its use in Rome.

With the progressive mixture of peoples and customs, the pants ended up extending, first among popular classes (artisans, peasants, sailors and lower class people in general), until universal in the West...although only among men.

Few garments better represent male secular domain than pants.The history of his conquest for the women's closet is closely linked to the struggle for women's rights equality.The pioneers in carrying them, such as the feminist leader Amelia Bloomer (1818-1854), faced the society of the nineteenth century and generated waves of indignation.The women who defended the equal use of the pants were lifted with indecent, masculinizing, defenders of free love, divorce and tobacco consumption among the female population.

With World War I began to change things, and the final turn occurred in the interwar period.The woman joined the factories and attended the soldiers on the battlefield.The pants became necessary for eminently practical reasons.

The cowboy deserves apart.The one that today is the unisex garment where there were were born as work clothes.It goes back to the twelfth century, in the city of Genoa (Gêne is Genoa in French, which resulted in "jeans" for the Anglopartlantes).His Navy needed pants that was very resistant.For a long time, jeans were limited to work terrain.Its generalized (male) use dates back to 1873, when the American patent office authorized Levi Strauss the exclusive industrial production of these pants.

But the company soon saw a reef in the female clientele, and in 1934 the Lady Levi’s created.They were designed for farm and ranches workers from the west American.And they were also ranking, as an exotic license, women who spent vacations in Ranchos for tourists.They carried buttons in the panty instead of zipper, a small gesture with which a certain decorum was tried.

From men to women

The pants have not been the only example of clothing that, for different reasons, has gone from men to women.

The women began using gabardines to give excess to the surplus after World War II

Thomas Burberry created a breathable, waterproof and resistant fabric in 1880, revolutionizing the heavy rain garments.After several preliminary models, the famous gabardina prospered during World War I (not in vain is known in English as Trench Coat, trench coat).

Its functional design had loaf so that British army officers could hang their tool.Even D rings in the form of Drush grenades.A front flap offered additional protection and a waterproof panel on the back allowed the water to slide easily.

Women began using gabardines after World War II to give way to a surplus of that piece, associated for years to the military and then converted into Unisex.

But the indistinct use by genres of garments has not always been born of the need.Sometimes it has simply arrived from the hand of fashion and aesthetics, as in the case of tuxedo.

In the mid -nineteenth century, English knights began to wear what was called "Smoking Jacket".It was a kind of batín, for exclusively domestic use.He was usually made of sumptuous materials, and had the peculiarity that the neck and mouths were of a fabric that contrasted with the rest of the garment.The lords placed it when they retired to smoking, after dinner, and thus attenuated the smell of smoke in the clothes.

Over time, the already simply called "tuxing" (Tuxedo in the United States, by the name of the New York club in which he looked for the first time) extended its use to elegant and gala acts, always used by men.

As an exception, Marlene Dietrich took one in the movie Morocco, in 1930.But to see extended its use among women it had to wait until 1966, when Yves Saint Laurent included the first female tuxedo in his collection, making it one of the iconic pieces of his career and fashion in general.

The case of the skirt

The history of the skirt has traveled a different path.Today the exclusive piece of the female wardrobe, in the ancient civilizations they used it equally men and women.Assyrians, Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans...It was a comfortable outfit, which allowed great freedom of movement.However, then there were differences, embodied in the length of the garment, usually short for men and long for women.

While in the male closet he was falling into disuse, in the female he settled since the 5th century and has not fallen from the hangers.Of course, then it lengthened to the feet, and thus continued until the beginning of the 20th century, when it began to shorten again until it reached its slightest expression in the sixties, with the miniskirt.

This has not been a round trip trip.With the exception of the KBT, typical of Scotland and Ireland, men have not dressed again, despite shy and repeated attempts from some fashion creators.

The Duchess of Alba and her collection of lovers and enemies

Department stores, the origin of the temples of consumption

The exorbitant styling of Queen Maria Antoinette