Tobi trousers

Two workers wearing tobi pants and jika-tabi boots

Tobi trousers or tobi pants (Japanese: 鳶ズボン) are a type of baggy pants used as a common uniform of tobi shokunin (鳶職（とびしょく）), 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).[citation needed]

According to a spokesperson for Toraichi, a major manufacturer of worker's clothes of this style, the style was developed from knickerbockers which were part of Japanese military uniform during World War II. The regular knickerbocker-style pants are called "nikka zubon" ("zubon" meaning "trousers" and "nikka" or "nikka-bokka", a gairaigo transformation of the word "knickerbockers"). The excessively widened ones are called chocho zubon.[2] 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 "Baggy trousers", The Japan Times, December 20, 2005.
  2. ^ Gordenker, Alice (20 December 2005). "Baggy trousers". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 9 February 2009.
  3. ^ Kurashima, Kyoko (18 January 2006). "Japanese Construction Worker Fashion". PingMag. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015.


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