Tobi trousers

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 jikatabi (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. ^ ^{a b c} "Baggy trousers", Japan Times, December 20, 2005
2. ^ Catalog of tobi clothes, tobi.jp
3. ^ Japanese Construction Worker Fashion, PingMag, 18 January 2006